


Blend Your Colours Into Mine

by Whookami



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Auras, Child neglect/abuse, Homophobic Slurs, Many minor mentioned characters, Other, Post Season 2, Self-Esteem Issues, Soulmates, Suicidal Ideation, stoncy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27478963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whookami/pseuds/Whookami
Summary: Out there in the world exist a tiny number of people who might be your soulmate, those who you will be able to experience true love and fulfillment with. Your soul is constantly on the look out for these special people, catching sight of them in the form of their aura. A flash of light, a vibrant smear of colour, a subtle dappling shade...auras can appear as all of these, depending on the way their owner is feeling.Jonathan Byers has been catching glimpses of Steve Harrington’s aura since almost before he can remember. Steve isn’t his soulmate though. That’s ridiculous. He hates Steve Harrington. He just needs his soul to understand that too. Why does it have to be so hard?
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 9
Kudos: 85
Collections: Stranger Things Rare Pair Big Bang 2020





	Blend Your Colours Into Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! This is my contribution for the Rare Pair Big Bang 2020! It’s Stoncy with glimpses of each of the pairs that go into making the trifecta, leaning most heavily into open Stonathan territory. The artwork is provided by the super talented Shypt, so make sure you check out the links at the end so you can go tell her just how awesome her pictures are! Thank you and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: I forgot to add my two wonderful beta readers who saved this work from using the words ‘just’, ‘actually’ and others a legitimately staggering amount of times! So my eternal thanks to Wolfish_Willow and Pterawaters!

Steve Harrington is a walking lie. For this reason alone, Jonathan Byers has grown to hate him.

Well, maybe there’s more to it than just that. The first seeds are planted in those unabashed lies, but it’s his denial of this fact that allows those feelings to bloom in Jonathan’s heart. The way Steve shrugs everything off with a lazy smile and a no-shits-given attitude. It’s infuriating. 

The real problem is that Jonathan can’t call Steve on his bullshit. Not without admitting something that is, at best, a little embarrassing, and at worst might result in him getting his face punched in. 

Even as a child Jonathan is aware that some things are not worth the trouble they might cause you in the long run. The other boys at school might push him around, maybe kick him a few times once they got him on the ground. Jonathan can handle that. He knows how to pick himself up and walk away. No, the thing that really frightens him is the possibility that word will somehow get home to his father. Lonnie Byers isn’t the type to take this sort of thing as a normal moment of youthful confusion. For Lonnie, the idea that his son occasionally catches glimpses of another _boy’s_ aura...this would be something he’d need to beat out of Jonathan before it could grow any more powerful. Before it could take _root_.

It isn’t like it’s _only_ Steve’s aura he can see. From time to time Jonathan notices the slight distortion of colours around other classmates and students at Hawkins Elementary. Steve however is the only boy, and the only one that really puzzles Jonathan. For instance, the girl who sits behind him in music class, who wears huge sweaters and lots of costume jewelry, sometimes gives off quick flashes of colour he can see from the corner of his eye. It’s vibrant, but never lasts long. It makes sense, though. They both like music and hang out mostly by themselves. They speak little when not spoken to. Every now and then Jonathan feels her staring at him, head on her desk and only her intense blue eyes showing, narrowed like she’s trying to peer _through_ him. Jonathan wonders more than once if it was maybe because she can see his colours too? If she does, Robin never says anything about it. Maybe she’s just trying to see if she can? It’s impossible to force yourself to see another’s aura, everyone knows that. Either you are a person’s soulmate or you’re not. It can’t be made to happen by sheer willpower, or else what’s the point? It doesn’t stop some people from _trying_ though. 

Jonathan doesn’t think he actually is Steve Harrington’s soulmate. It’s a ridiculous idea. In childhood there are simply.... _moments_. Moments when your soul understands someone else’s in such a powerful way that it causes you to become aware of it, to connect to it. Kids are too young to actually have soulmates, they’re still learning, still discovering what kind of person they want to grow up to be. It’s like practicing, making these tenuous connections never meant to last more than a second or two. His mom had explained it like a person’s soul was constantly on alert, catching these flashes from other people now and then when something inside of them recognizes something inside of you. It was perfectly natural. It couldn’t be helped. Not that his father would understand that. 

So Jonathan learns from a very young age to keep certain things to himself. The problem will go away eventually on its own. As you get older the ability manifests less and less. People become more defined as individuals, their tastes and preferences more pronounced. Over the years people will begin to fall away, one by one, their flashes of colour forever invisible to all but the select few who might truly be their potential soulmate. Most people have a few out there in the world waiting for them. A couple they might have the luck to actually run into during their lifetime. No one knows for sure how many a person can have as a maximum, if such a limit even exists. Some people never see a single aura once they hit adulthood, having to content themselves with finding another matchless person, or with being alone. 

Truthfully, Jonathan worries about that most of all. Lonnie has drilled it into him that he’s different, that it’s glaringly obvious to everyone around him. He’s always known it on some level, but the fact that his own father taunts him mercilessly about it only serves to make Jonathan self conscious to the point he can’t function well around other people. He keeps his head down and tries to block everything out, but sometimes… sometimes things happen in a way you can’t expect. Sometimes life makes sure you’re in the right place at the right time to see something you’re meant to see. 

Jonathan just doesn’t understand why so often the thing the universe most wants him to see has to be Steve Harrington. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


The first time Jonathan sees Steve’s aura is on a bench outside school. He’s super late leaving for the day, having stayed behind to help clean up after their class had made a finger paint mural. Jonathan wasn’t trying to be a suck up or anything. It was near the end of the month, right before the welfare checks came in. His dad would be broke by now for sure, and until more money came in the mail he was guaranteed to be in a wicked mood. Jonathan would rather avoid being home with the man. When she isn’t at work, Mom’s usually preoccupied with Will these days, the baby being loud and colicky. It only makes Lonnie’s temper worse, but it’s not like Will can help it. Even Lonnie understands he can’t take his frustrations out on a baby, but that doesn’t help Jonathan much. It’s better to keep himself out of sight until dinner time at least. 

That’s how it happens that Jonathan passes by the figure sitting alone on a bench outside the school, head tucked to his chest and legs swinging slowly beneath him. 

He recognizes the other boy immediately. Everyone in school knows who Steve Harrington is. The older kid walks loud, talks loud, and even manages to emote loud. It’s not a surprise that his aura is just as desperate to be noticed as the rest of him. 

He sits in a box of sharp jagged lines, awkward angles forming a distorted cell around him. The inside of the shape is the colour of a fresh bruise, rosy reds and rich violets curling around each other in uneven splotches. Jonathan has never seen that colour before, has never seen another person’s _aura_ before, but he instantly recognizes it for what it is. _Loneliness_. Steve Harrington is lonely. 

Jonathan knows it’s getting late and he should head right home if he wants to avoid getting cuffed by his father, but he can’t bring himself to walk past the other boy like he hadn’t seen anything. Some perverse internal moral compass demands that he stop and address the situation. “Uh, hey?” Jonathan asks quietly, standing nervously beside the wooden bench Harrington and his bizarre cube occupy. “Maybe you should go home. School’s been out for a while.”

The other boy’s chin raises sharply, head swiveling to search out whomever had spoken to him. Steve’s sudden smile is blinding. His eyes squint and lips stretch and it’s like the sun rising, except...the bruised square doesn’t so much as shake or shudder at Jonathan’s intrusion. “Oh, hi,” Steve replies warmly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Curiously he cocks his chin toward Jonathan and smiles again. “Nah, it’s cool. I’m waiting for my parents. They’re running late today. Important business meeting. But they’ll be here soon. Then we’re going out for ice cream. They always take me for ice cream when they’re late. Not that they’re late very often. But they’re both really important people, so sometimes it happens. But it’s okay. What’s your favourite kind?”

Steve speaks in a waterfall rush, words tumbling out like he can’t help how rapidly they’re coming and has to run his mouth awfully fast just to stay ahead. There is a certain hypnotic cadence to his speech, a rhythm to the river of words that carries Jonathan away with it, that leaves him wanting to listen to more thoughts bubbling out of Steve’s mouth. 

Ever the adept at social interactions, Jonathan blinks once. “Uh, huh? My...what?”

Steve returns Jonathan’s blink with one of his own, dark chocolate eyes openly staring until Jonathan can’t take it anymore and ducks his head slightly. Even with his bangs hanging low across his forehead, he feels the other boy watching, can see pale tendrils of his aura break free from their rigid shape. It almost looks like they are reaching out toward Jonathan, beckoning him closer, trying to pull him in. 

“Ice. Cream.” Steve enunciates slowly, somehow making a production out of just two words. 

“Oh. Uh. Vanilla?”

“ **Bzzt!!** Wrong!”

Jonathan’s head whips up at the other boy’s crowing laugh. Steve has his arms wrapped around his middle and is shaking with each giggling breath. 

“Nobody _likes_ vanilla,” Steve explains in a patient, if condescending tone. “That’s just what moms say they like when they can’t eat chocolate in front of their friends ‘cause they’ll get called fat.”

That...that isn’t true. It’s also an oddly specific thing to say and makes Jonathan wonder where the older boy had picked up such a strange idea. 

“No,” Jonathan crosses his arms obstinately over his chest, suddenly fully prepared to die on the hill of vanilla appreciation because _someone_ has to. Since the dawn of time it feels as if it had always been building to this point, the grand climax in the age-old battle of chocolate and vanilla, and Jonathan is prepared. He opens his mouth to make the first salvo when Steve beats him to the punch. 

“Strawberry is the best. I mean, it’s like, fresh and it’s fruit, but it’s really sweet! Vanilla is a warm flavour. Who puts a warm flavour in something cold? It doesn’t make sense.”

Caught off guard by the other kid’s unconventional preference, Jonathan eyes Steve suspiciously. “What about chocolate?”

Steve scoffs hard enough that his bangs flutter with the force, looking back at Jonathan with the type of confidence that only a genius or an idiot could support so blindly. “Overrated,” he replies with a dismissive flap of his hand. “Now, butterscotch, th—“

“No! No way! If Vanilla is a ‘warm’ flavour, then so is butterscotch!”

“Nu-uhn! Butterscotch is chewy! Chewy can’t be warm!”

“Caramel is warm and chewy!”

Steve’s face scrunches up as he fights against Jonathan’s relentless assault of logic, hair becoming unruly and flying wildly around his head as both boys grow more physical in defence of the best ice cream flavour. Or at least, that’s where it starts. Jonathan isn't exactly sure where this conversation is going, but it’s a lot better than talking to his dad. The older man only likes to talk about sports and killing animals and cars. Jonathan doesn’t care about any of those things. He doesn’t care much about ice cream flavours either, but arguing with the older boy like this is surprisingly fun. His mouth is constantly in motion and he punctuates every sentence with triumphant laughter. It’s a pretty stupid discussion, sure, but they’re kids, so why should that matter? Steve continues to plow onward, grinning maniacally and waving his arms around in huge motions to emphasize his proclamations, each one getting steadily more grand and further off topic. 

“What are you even _talking_ about? You can’t mix peanuts and marshmallows! That’s crunchy and fluffy! It’s hearsay!”

Jonathan is pretty sure he means _heresy_ , but doesn’t dispute the boy on the matter. He needs to attack the heart of Steve’s argument. “Marshmallows are obviously chewy!”

His hands are tangled in his dark locks, tugging by the roots so that his hair stands almost straight up on his head, like a bizarre crown. “What are you, **_crazy_ **?? Tha—“

“Oh, Steven,” Mrs. Lovelace interrupts the height of their disagreement, glasses slipping down her nose as she peeks out of the school doors. “I wondered what the racket out here was. I should have known. Did your parents forget about you again?”

Steve’s eyes fly comically wide, shock paling his face except for two bright splashes of colour riding high across his cheeks. He deflates like the air has been punched out of him, shoulders slumping forward in an instant as he all but crumbles on the bench. All of the bright excitement drains from his body, leaving only his large luminous eyes staring at their teacher in utter betrayal.

It’s only as the cage flares back to life around him that Jonathan even realizes it had disappeared for a good portion of their discussion. He wonders when that had happened, but struggles to pin down any moment in particular when he’s sure it was gone. 

“Really, Steven. I’ve had to talk to them about this twice already,” Mrs. Lovelace continues, completely oblivious to the distress her young pupil is going through. “I can’t be constantly driving you home when they forget to make arrangements for you. Please tell them this for me. Again.”

Steve is somehow smaller now, a normal boy completely robbed of his former grandness by the teacher’s thoughtless words. The colour of his prison swirls into something else, from a bruise into rotten fruit, shadowed with decay. It almost hurts to look at. Nausea sweeps over Jonathan, and catches bitterly in his throat. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve replies with a slight nod of his head, his voice soft and fragile in the hush of the nearly empty school yard. “I’m sure they didn’t mean to.”

“They never do, Steven. They never do. I’ll go grab my stuff. Be back in a moment.” Mrs. Lovelace turns to go but at the last second she spots Jonathan hovering behind Steve, trying to make himself invisible. “Don’t tell me your parents have forgotten you too?” She asks in a tone that speaks of how tired she must be of dealing with this particular problem. Somehow Steve manages to shrink even smaller hearing it. 

“Uh, no. No ma’am,” Jonathan answers as quickly as he can. “I walk home. I was just going-“

Before he can explain why he had stopped, what had drawn him to Steve, she gives him a clipped “Good. Run along then,” and disappears into the school without a backward glance. 

With the teacher gone Jonathan half expects Steve to bounce back to life, to fill back up with energy and noise, but no such thing happens. His aura continues to curl around him like a shroud, making him seem impossibly distant even as he sits barely three feet away. 

“Did you wanna-“

Steve’s eyes flash with anger as he turns to stare down at Jonathan, a cold fire that eats up all his previous warmth and charm. It’s the first time Jonathan will witness the boy’s mercurial temperament, but far from the last. “Didn’t you hear the teacher?” Steve snarls, his voice changing from fragile into something jagged and full of venom. “Go **home** , Byers. Get out of here!”

Jonathan puts up with this sort of bullshit on the regular at home. He doesn’t have to take this sort of attitude from someone who isn’t even a full year older than him. He should have expected that no good would come of trying to talk to Steve Harrington. Word around school already describes the boy as stuck up and kind of bossy. He likes to be the centre of attention. He couldn’t be more different from Jonathan than night from day. 

With a shrug Jonathan spins around to face towards home and begins walking, leaving the other boy without even a goodbye. Next time, if there is a next time, Jonathan’s just going to ignore Steve. Who cares if his aura is lonely, or if he’s sitting all by himself. Jonathan does just fine on his own. Steve would just have to learn to deal with it in the same fashion. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


All in all, his first experience with seeing someone’s aura leaves him feeling a little jaded about the whole thing. It seems like more trouble than it’s worth, and Jonathan resolves to not care about _anyone’s_ aura. He doesn’t need additional problems in his life. Trying to avoid his dad and look after his little brother are more than enough to keep him busy. 

For a few years he allows himself to mostly forget that day, going about his life pursuing minimal interaction with other people and their auras. He sees them, like almost everyone does, but he refuses to say or do anything about it. He pretends like he hasn’t seen them, like he’s colourblind, or one of the matchless. There were a couple of reasons someone might not ever see an aura in their lifetime, and Jonathan’s fine with letting the people around him speculate which of those categories he fits under. 

If he has to live life constantly catching glimpses of Steve Harrington’s colours seeping into his vision then Jonathan prefers to believe that auras, and all they represent, are essentially meaningless. They aren’t trying to point out the people that your soul is best suited to loving, they don’t signal some kind of divine connection. He promises himself he’ll never fall prey to all the insanity that the topic of soulmates evokes in his peers. He’s seen through the easy, comforting lies that people tell themselves, that leads people to stick with husbands or wives that make them miserable or hurt them. Jonathan doesn’t _need_ some sort of mystically dictated perfect partner. He’ll choose for himself. If it seems like his soul is honing in on one person as he gets older then he’ll deliberately turn the other way. The last thing Jonathan needs is to actively invite more trouble or stress into his life. Jonathan feels much older and more mature than the majority of the other students who waste so much time gossiping and speculating about who’s seen whose aura, and what celebrities were secret soulmates. He’s grown past all that childishness. 

Or so he tells himself. 

Everything changes the first day he sees the towering pillar of Nancy Wheeler’s fiery aura from across the entire playground, snapping and crackling high into the sky like an inferno despite the girl’s tiny frame. 

Doing his best to remain steady as he walks over to see what the commotion is, Jonathan sticks to the outside edge of the crowd. At first he thinks that everyone present must’ve seen the same sight he did, but that isn’t what’s being whispered about, passing quietly from person to person like a game of telephone. He slowly circles around until he’s behind the figures isolated in the middle of the gaggle of onlookers. The crowd is slightly thinner here, and by stepping on his tiptoes Jonathan can just make out what’s happening before him. 

On the ground, Jamie Braun looks out from within a mask of fury at a pair of young girls, his fists clenched at his sides and shaking with raw emotion. Nancy is straight backed and fierce above him, her blue eyes zeroed in on the boy without an ounce of forgiveness to be seen inside their boiling depths. God, Jonathan would give _anything_ to be able to revisit that moment later in life, to be able to hold it close to his heart and remember it when things seemed their most hopeless. Nancy Wheeler was an angel of vengeance that day. Her friend, Barb something, is standing at her side, shoulders hunched awkwardly and her eyes tiny and blinking to hold back the tears lining their edges. Jonathan realizes after a moment that the reason her eyes look wrong is because of the twisted and cracked glasses she’s clutching in her cupped hands, held solemnly to her chest. It’s easy to read what happened here, he doesn’t even need the blinding flames of Nancy’s rage to spell the story out for him. 

Finally pushed to the edge by the whispers and taunts of the crowd watching them with vicious glee, Jamie scrambles back to his feet. His mouth open in a snarl, looking more silly than scary due to the fact he’d lost two of his front teeth earlier in the week. If Nancy feels any differently about her adversary than Jonathan, she doesn’t show it. Nothing about her indicates that she feels even the smallest sliver of fear while facing down a boy half again her size. 

Turning back to her friend, Nancy lays a gentle hand on Barb’s shoulder. Jonathan knows this isn’t the first time a bully has targeted Barb. For whatever reason she’s been marked as a social outcast just as surely as Jonathan himself. Nancy could’ve been popular if she wanted. She’s smart and pretty, and her family can afford nice clothes and the best school supplies. Even as young as they are though, Nancy has principles. Jonathan has gleaned this much from things he’s heard around school, and also through Will spending time with Nancy’s younger brother. If she wanted to be popular she couldn’t bring Barb along, and that made the prospect not worth it for her. It said a lot about Nancy that her friendship meant more to her than running with the so-called ‘right’ crowd. It’s easy to see just how much the two girls mean to each other, smiling back and forth while they ignore the crowd curiously watching them. The fires around Nancy begin to soften somewhat, her anger still present but dying down into the warm flickers of a campfire or hearth. 

Jonathan, thankfully, can’t see Jamie’s aura, but his fury doesn’t need any colour to be obvious. He lets out a guttural howl and charges suddenly at the girls across the short distance separating them. Barb tugs worriedly at Nancy’s sweater and the two turn as one to try and make a hasty getaway when a new figure enters the scene.

Jonathan can’t help the groan that escapes his lips. Of course. Of course _he’d_ show up. Nothing can happen on the playground without him coming over to make sure at least some of the attention falls on him. Jonathan is sorely tempted to leave, an instinctive desire to have nothing to do with Steve, but if there was even a chance that Nancy might still be in danger…? He isn’t certain. Is Jamie one of Harrington’s lackies? Will he team up with the other boy against Nancy? There are too many things that could go wrong, and quickly. Jonathan is all but rooted to the spot until he knows for certain that Nancy is going to be okay. It’s not that she needs the help or anything, she’s already proved that by taking down Jamie on her own. No, Jonathan doesn’t want to leave her here with _Steve_. His distaste for the other boy curdles unpleasantly in his gut, nausea washing over him. For reasons he doesn’t even understand, he wants to keep Nancy and her beautiful aura away from Steve, like the boy’s own colours could strike out and leech away her fire. 

The circle of watchers let Steve pass through easily, parting open and lining his path like he’s some kind of celebrity. Steve acts like he doesn’t even notice them, his focus entirely on the three people standing apart from the rest, surrounded by the crowd on all sides. He effortlessly intercepts Jamie as he takes three lumbering steps forward, all set to begin the chase. A slow smile spreads across the older boy’s face, all perfect white teeth and casual confidence. Even if he was pretending like he’s unaware of the audience around them, Jonathan can easily read Steve’s actions as a performance. 

“Hey, Jamie,” he greets, bringing the boy to an abrupt stop by slinging an arm across his shoulder like they’re good buddies. Something about the gesture makes Jonathan feel certain that Jamie isn’t a member of the other’s usual crew. Not that Jonathan takes note of who Steve regularly talks to or anything. It’s normal to pick up on that sort of thing after attending school together for so many years, right? He sure hopes so. “You’re going after girls? Isn’t that kinda cowardly? I mean, if you’re a guy, you should be taking on other guys. It’s not fair pushing girls around, right?” Jonathan can’t help but roll his eyes. This is exactly the kind of bullshit he’d expect from someone like Harrington. Does he really think he’s fooling anything with the whole white knight routine? Well...it’s hard not to notice the way a few girls in the crowd have suddenly developed starry eyes as they watch the scene unfold in front of them. It’s more than a little aggravating to know just how easily they’re letting themselves be manipulated. 

Jamie tries to jerk away from Steve’s hold but despite how lax it appears, the boy’s arm holds firm. “What the he—“

“If you just go around picking on girls me an’ the other guys are gonna start thinking you’re a pussy or something. Maybe something worse? You don’t want anyone calling you a queer, do you?”

Jonathan feels his stomach lurch, a swell of bile rising up to coat the back of his throat. Hearing that word, that awful hateful word, from the mouth of Steve Harrington… he isn’t exactly surprised, except by the depth of the disappointment he feels toward the other boy. How could Jonathan have ever seen the aura of someone who can toss that word around so casually? It feels traitorous that his soul could do such a thing. More than any other word, Jonathan hates that one, hates the way he could taste his father’s displeasure coating it every time the man hurled it at either of his sons. It is a weapon the old man always has at the ready, and Jonathan tries to make sure he’s the one on the receiving end of it. Sparing Will the worst of their father’s attacks, both physical and verbal, is Jonathan’s top priority. It didn’t always work out, but he wasn’t going to give up and leave Will having to go through the same pain Jonathan’s been dealing with for most of his life. 

He doesn't expect the insult to have much of an effect on Jamie, but for whatever reason it works. Maybe he has a history with the word similar to Jonathan’s own. The bully blinks dumbly at Steve before craning his neck in the other’s hold to gawk at the lingering spectators. He flushes in embarrassment before pushing himself away with an aggressive shake. This time Steve lets him go easily. 

Continuing to walk away as though he hadn’t stopped by for a friendly chat, Steve casually tosses out one last comment behind him. “Just keep that in mind for next time.” A clear warning that if it happened again it wouldn’t just be Steve calling him a queer, the whole school yard would pick up on the taunt, would eagerly use the word to mercilessly punish the boy until he broke. With a small salute over his shoulder, Steve vanishes into the ring of students as quickly as he had appeared. Jonathan shudders and ducks behind a tree, overcome with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He can hear the crowd slowly shuffle and disperse now that the show is apparently over. Not wanting to face anyone in the aftermath, Jonathan waits until he feels confident the spectators are gone before he carefully edges out from the shadow of the tree trunk. 

Jamie is still standing in the same place, his expression frozen in a look of dumb awe. The guy lost control of everything and doesn’t seem to understand how it happened. He definitely hadn’t expected Nancy Wheeler to best him, and then Steve Harrington to come along to browbeat him into submission. Jonathan realizes with a frown that Jamie isn’t alone. Two other figures have lingered after the crowd, and Jonathan can see the malicious grins that split their faces like carnival masks. Without warning Tommy Hagan punches Jamie in the small of his back, sending the bigger boy stumbling forward. He savagely kicks the back of his knee and Jamie tumbles, splaying out on the ground. He doesn’t even put his arms out to catch himself, just lets his face plant roughly in the gravelly dirt. While Jonathan watches in horrified fascination, Tommy and Carol take turns kicking the whimpering boy, their heels raising up little clouds of dust as they laugh uproariously the entire time. Only when Jamie goes quiet and stops trying to protect himself do the two seem satisfied, walking off hand in hand in the same direction the crowd had wandered.

Sick and sweating, Jonathan runs the opposite way, reaching the border of the school grounds without slowing. He runs all the way home and hides out in the shed behind his house until school is over, crying and choking on the acidic bile that keeps trying to flood his mouth and drown him. Aside from his father, nothing has ever scared him as badly as watching two kids kick the shit out of another, hysterically gleeful laughter steady like a soundtrack underpinning the action. They had looked like animals, like predators toying with their meal before the inevitable conclusion. Jonathan knows that those two are Steve Harrington’s best friends. The same Steve he has seen the truth of in flashes and glimpses, that has been painted a liar time and time again by the brilliant mosaic of his own emotions. The same Steve who had been left lonely and forgotten by his parents after school at least a handful of times. The same Steve who had threatened a bully by implying he was gay. It’s so confusing, all these mismatching pieces of a boy that don’t make sense no matter how Jonathan tries fitting them together. Who is Steve really on the inside? He already hides everything he feels behind an unfaltering mask of happiness, is it that hard to believe his smile conceals fangs like his friends’ do? Jonathan doesn’t understand why he finds the idea so distressing. He _hates_ Steve Harrington, so there’s no reason for him to care so much about what he’s really like on the inside. 

Curling up on his bed, Jonathan skips dinner that night. Lonnie complains that he’s wasting his parents’ hard earned money, but Mom kisses his forehead and tells him it’s okay. If he wants something later she can heat it up for him. It makes him feel marginally better when she tucks his blankets up around his chin nice and tight. Her hands, always so warm and gentle, card through his hair as she wishes him goodnight. Eventually sleep claims him, but his dreams are dark and turbulent. Carol and Tommy hover over Jamie, two vultures picking the bones of their victim clean. The tips of their fingers are stained red. Clutching and scrabbling, they paint each other in crimson tones. Alone in the background Steve stands silently, watching them, but his features are concealed by thick swathes of shadow. For the first time ever Jonathan wishes desperately to see the colour of the other boy’s feelings, but only the inky darkness plays across Steve’s motionless form.

It’s an almost prophetic image, and it sticks in Jonathan’s mind long past the point when the other details have grown vague. He catches himself seeking out the older boy despite himself, eyes always darting around nervously for a glimpse of Steve in the halls at school. Everything he knows about the other boy is undergoing constant re-evaluation, Jonathan examining and dissecting his memories for some hidden truth. Then again, what does Jonathan actually know about Steve for certain? Most of what he can come up with are disjointed scraps of information he’s overheard as idle chit chat passed between classmates. The picture they paint is of an arrogant boy who has everything he could ever want or need, but who acts like he’s entitled to more. Spoiled and vain, and sure to ride his parents’ coattails into a successful career and a boatload of money. Steve Harrington has perfected the image of the all-American teenage boy, complete with varsity jacket and coiffed hair, and isn’t smart enough to aspire to more. 

That’s what everyone says.

Jonathan of all people should understand that gossip is rarely the plain truth, and that the little boy he saw locked in a cage of his own loneliness was not the result of a loving family. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Jonathan is thirteen when he witnesses Steve Harrington standing alone on the cliffs above the quarry, barely more than a hazy silhouette against the late afternoon sun. Even all the way across the water from him Jonathan doesn’t doubt for a moment exactly who it is. He simply _knows,_ and that knowledge summons a quivering tendril of fear to wrap around his heart, squeezing relentlessly. The aura given off by the boy is a black storm raging around his shoulders, billowing over his head and fading like smoke into the cloudless sky. 

Instantly all thoughts of his parents’ failing marriage, his own miserable ostracization at school, and Will’s constant torment by bullies, is pushed from his head. Auras aren’t really well understood, Jonathan knows that. His time spent ignoring that he could see them was partnered with desperate research into the phenomenon. He had wanted any scraps of information he could use to try and prove just how worthless they were as indicators of true love. It was a difficult subject, though. They defied most meaningful attempts at being studied. However, one fact all his sources agree upon is that the instinctive knowledge that accompanies them, the way the mind automatically interprets what the colours mean, is unfailingly accurate. What Jonathan senses from Steve terrifies him. Emptiness. A complete void where his emotions should be. 

He’s running up the gravel road that curves along the sheer drop before he can consciously decide to take action. His body had moved on its own accord, recognizing the danger its soulmate is in. Except Steve Harrington is definitely _not_ his soulmate. Sure, every now and then he’s still catching sight of the other’s aura, but it’s like lightning, a single shocking streak across the sky and it’s gone without a trace. Jonathan is just a late bloomer. By now most of his classmates have stopped randomly seeing others’ colours, finally settling in to themselves as individuals. They’ve entered the next phase where their souls are paring down the number of acceptable partners that exist for them. The most popular theory is that this change is somehow tied to puberty, but there are just too many unknowns. What Jonathan does know is that sometimes he still catches sight of the other boy’s aura despite everything that says he shouldn’t be able to, and also that Steve Harrington is moments away from jumping into the quarry. 

Jonathan usually takes it easy when he comes out here, ambles along the gravel road until he can laze around at the top and lean back to watch the sky. Before his Walkman broke he’d have some music playing, but Jonathan is still content without it. He just appreciates the time away from everything else, finding that he needs it to unwind more and more as he gets older. He definitely didn’t come prepared to run several hundred feet uphill to collapse practically at Harrington’s feet. For his part, Steve doesn’t seem to notice him until Jonathan is sagging onto the ground next to him, pushing away the sweaty bangs from his forehead. He’s breathing heavily from the exertion and dressed in a thick sweater, but he shivers as a cold prickly feeling breaks out over his body. His mind fights back against the sensation, knowing he can’t afford to freeze up. He needs to do something, and quickly. 

Underneath the dark weight of his aura Steve’s eyes are like glittering slivers of onyx, cold and distant as they watch Jonathan without any feeling. There’s a bruise high on Steve’s cheek and caked blood beneath his nose, drying down along the curve of his chin. Jonathan recognizes the look on his face because he’s stared into the same expression far too many times in the mirror. 

Breath finally beginning to even out, Jonathan pulls his legs up under himself and stares over the ledge, down into the rocky basin. “I like to come out here when my parents are fighting,” he starts softly, almost like he’s talking to himself. “I hate leaving my little brother behind, but sometimes I can’t take it. I need some time to myself.”

Things are quiet for a few minutes, Jonathan idly fingering the rough hem of his jeans and Steve standing at the cliff’s edge with his head down and hands shoved deep in his pockets. The sun is starting to set now and the sky behind them is pooling along the rim in thick hazy bands of pink and gold. It would be beautiful if he knew they both didn’t feel so ugly inside. Sighing, Steve shuffles backwards awkwardly and falls onto his ass beside Jonathan, drawing his knees up under his chin. Relief fills his chest. 

“Your parents fight a lot.”

It’s not a question. Everyone in town knows Lonnie’s reputation, knows his mom is...well, Jonathan doesn’t want to think of all the unkind words that he’s heard people say about his mom from behind their hands. She tries. She tries really hard, and she loves him and Will more than anything on this earth. Jonathan is absolutely certain of that much. He nods anyway, so Steve knows he’s listening. 

“Mine don’t,” the boy continues. “They barely even talk. They just sort of...” he holds his hands up shoulder width apart, looking from one to the next as he moves them in sluggish circles. “Exist in the same space. Like, they’re both there, but they’re not there with each other. Or with me. We’re all orbiting the same star, but never line up. Something like that,” he finishes in a mumble, words trailing off self consciously. 

He’s not sure what to say. Steve’s aura is gone now, vanished back to wherever auras go when they aren’t being seen. What the older boy is thinking or feeling right now is a mystery to Jonathan, but at the same time, he feels closer to him in that moment. Steve isn’t lying to him, isn’t projecting the persona of the king to amplify the distance between them. He’s sitting right up at Jonathan’s side, and even if his face is largely without emotion, there’s a certain openness in that lack of expression. This is just Steve, not the rich pompous son of the town’s most well known family. This is a boy who has his own fears and hurt that he carries with him. A boy not at all unlike Jonathan. 

He can’t help the small smile that tugs at his lips. To even suggest that such a thing could be true would be heretical if they were at school, but out here at the top of the quarry it holds a certain sad solemnity. Under the circumstances, how could Jonathan’s soul _not_ have seen Steve, not recognized his pain? Jonathan’s mouth parts open in spite of himself, about to divulge this most sacred of secrets when the other boy speaks first. 

“I wish they’d break up. Wish they’d just get rid of me like they want to.

“It’s ‘cause I’m theirs, though,” Steve sniffles, burying his face into his jeans to try and hide the way his eyes are shining damply in the fading light. “I’m a _Harrington_ , and even if I’m not good enough for the name, they won’t give up something that belongs to them. If I can’t go out and do good enough on my own they’ll just stick me in a house and a job and they’ll pick me a wife and life insurance and a picket fence, and one day I’ll be dead.”

Jonathan’s spent an inordinate amount of time envying Steve’s wealth. Envied how he wore all the coolest clothes, how everything he carried was brand new, and his lunch was full of snacks and sweets that he gave away thoughtlessly to his friends, even though most of them had enough treats already packed into their bags by loving mothers with enough money that they could send their kids with more than a single sandwich and an off-brand juice box. He had never considered that Steve’s long term outlook would be so bleak. That’s how he knows it’s true, because Steve isn’t smiling as he says it. He just turns in on himself, quietly pretending not to cry as he explains how miserable he is to someone he’s barely exchanged words with since elementary school. It seems almost unfair that Jonathan’s the one sitting here with him, listening to Steve telling the truth for once. Isn’t this the sort of thing you’re supposed to share with your best friends, the people who you’re closest too? Jonathan isn’t exactly an expert on the subject, but considering the kids who hang around with Steve, Jonathan can’t see Tommy or Reed displaying compassion in the face of their friend’s vulnerability. If Steve told anyone else he’d go from being a king to a laughingstock. Only Jonathan lacks enough social presence to make a story about Steve crying at the top of a cliff into a rumour that could ruin him. 

“What do you want to do?” Is all Jonathan can think to ask, uncertain just how much he should push for Steve to tell him. He doesn’t want to pressure the other boy, to lead him back to the reason he was staring down into the quarry in the first place. It’s a delicate balance, but Jonathan’s been practicing navigating his mother’s turbulent emotions all his life. 

Steve wipes the tear tracks from his cheeks on the knees of his jeans, the denim lacking any fading or holes like most of Jonathan’s pants do. His hair is falling over his forehead and across most of his eyes, looking so soft and touchable, but he can still read the small glimmer of surprise in the older boy’s expression. 

“What....I want to do?” He asks, a nervous laugh hitching his words in the middle. His face is so open and guileless as he waits expectantly, like Jonathan needs to explain the question for Steve to properly understand. When Jonathan supplies nothing further the older boy turns his face to look back out over the quarry, eyes distant and troubled.

“I-I… don’t want anything. I don’t even know what I _should_ want. Since the minute I was born everything was already decided for me. They had to shuffle the plans around when they realized I wasn’t good enough or smart enough to do all the things they wanted me to do, but my parents are still the ones who made those decisions.” Steve’s voice is soft but surprisingly even, like this bleak look into his life was how he assumes things are for everyone.

“You don’t have anything you want to be when you’re older?”

Steve laughs dismissively. “No. I’m supposed to inherit my dad’s business, but even I know I won’t be any good at it. I don’t really _get_ it. He just spends all his time shifting numbers around in a bunch of books to make them ‘balance’. They’re _numbers_ . How the fuck do you _balance_ them?”

Jonathan is very aware that he knows the answer to Steve’s helplessly lost question. He is also very aware that the last thing the other boy needs is to be told that, like he’s getting remedial lessons from someone _younger_ than him. “Is your dad an accountant?” Jonathan asks instead, only glancing at Steve from the side of his eyes, pretending to focus on picking blades of grass from between the scrubby rocks.

“Yeah. Well, sorta? I mean, he _is_ , but I don’t think he actually does much of the work himself anymore. He owns a firm with a bunch of employees. He just tells them what to do mostly.”

Jonathan nods sagely in response like he expected the answer. It certainly explains why the Harringtons have so much money. Mr. Harrington runs his own office with plenty of others working beneath him. Steve is meant to take over when his dad’s too old and wants to retire or something. He doubts that anyone important to Steve had bothered to ask if he liked accounting or wanted to take over the family business. Maybe it’s better for everyone that Steve is...well...Jonathan grimaces silently in spite of himself. Talking to the other boy made it clear that Steve definitely wasn’t ever going to be an academic. It doesn’t mean that he’s stupid, though. He just isn’t very good at book learning. There are plenty of other ways to be smart. Steve probably fits better into one of those categories.

“When I was really young he spent a lot of time with me,” Steve starts again, his voice barely a whisper above the evening breeze. The few clouds had quickly scattered and the first bright stars have become visible in the blue-purple sky. Jonathan feels almost glad to be sitting on the top of the cliff, just listening to the words that slowly, helplessly slip from the boy sitting close beside him. Steve’s eyes have also drifted up to stare at the sky, his face painted in the gentle hues of the fading light. “He took me to sports games, and he liked to stop in all these crappy little diners afterwards and order just, like, the absolute _worst_ food. Things Mom would never let him eat at home. Just, covered in grease and full of like, fats and carbs and sugars and I don’t even know. Mom is on a different diet like, every week. He would take me and we’d eat until we couldn’t take another single bite, and he’d tell me about his job. It was just...I listened because it was like the price of going and having fun and eating bad food was that I had to pay attention and learn about what he did for a living. I always sort of knew I was supposed to do the same thing when I grew up. 

“When I was in second grade I failed math. Like, basic math. ‘One plus one is two’ shit. I have trouble with reading. Even if I try really hard everything takes such a long time and my brain starts to hurt. I told them that,” he sighs, and Jonathan can see his gaze darting between the various stars above like he’s hoping to find understanding amongst them. “They told me I was lazy. That it’s my own fault for not trying hard enough. I… I-I cried. They hated that. Told me I had to grow up and take things seriously. I was seven. Even before that, though. Even when I was in kindergarten, they… they stopped looking at me. Like they already knew, even then. Dad stopped taking me to games and Mom, well, Mom spends all her time on diets and fads and watching soaps. She and my dad hate each other but they’re never gonna divorce because they’d each lose too much.”

Jonathan sort of understands. His own parents are still together despite everything, after all. There is one difference though. “I don’t think my mom has that much to lose if she leaves my dad. I know I don’t. He thinks I’m…” his shoulders hunch up uncomfortably. He didn't really mean to say that. Sure, they may be sitting here together, but by tomorrow it won't mean anything. Everything will go back to the way it was before and any weakness he reveals to Steve will become ammunition to be used against him. He already knows Steve isn’t above using things like what Lonnie thinks of Jonathan, what he thinks Jonathan _is,_ as a weapon. “My family would be better off without him,” is how he chooses to finish instead, the words sounding lame even to his own ears.

To his surprise, Steve lets out a single pleased laugh at that, his face angling back toward Jonathan and reaching out to dig one boney elbow into his ribs. “Well yeah, ‘cause your dad’s a piece of shit, Byers,” he smirks in a tone that is almost insultingly matter-of-fact. Hot anger flushes Jonathan’s cheeks in an instant, an instinctive desire to lash back at the other boy barely able to be restrained by clenching his fists so hard he can feel his short nails cutting into the tender flesh of his palms. The fact that the statement is true, that Jonathan can’t honestly refute it only makes it worse, like Steve has dug inside his chest to pull out the most devastating thing to taunt him with. 

Sensing some wrongness, Steve’s eyes narrow, peering more closely at Jonathan. He’s being measured by the older boy, something deep and intent that leaves him feeling strangely _known._ Maybe Steve just wants to see if his digs hit their mark. Instead his momentarily sunny smile falters, shrinking into an expression that weirdly reminds Jonathan of his mother, of the look she gets when she’s worried but doesn’t want to push at him and make matters worse. How could Steve know all that though? They’re virtually strangers. He shouldn’t understand Jonathan’s defensiveness, the way his temper flares uncontrollably when he feels called out, _exposed_ , like this. 

Gnawing pensively at his lower lip with his even white teeth, Steve continues with fading humour. “At least it’s just your dad. Your mom cares about you, right?” It isn’t a question, his tone not lilting up at the end like one. The people of Hawkins may say a lot of hurtful things about Joyce Byers, but none are so blind that they’d accuse her of anything but total devotion to her children. Jonathan shrugs almost in embarrassment. It seems unkind to admit that his mother loves him to Steve. “At least you’ve got that going for you. My mom didn’t want me. She didn’t really want kids at all, but if she had to have one, she would’ve liked a girl, I think. She had a bad time having me and Dad told me once that she absolutely refused to ever have another. When I was a year old…”

Steve’s mouth shuts abruptly and his eyes have flown wide with pain and shock. The glance he sends Jonathan is almost scared, like he’s suddenly become aware of everything he’s said up to this point and knows it’s too much, too dangerous, to have shared with the weird kid a year behind him in school. It hurts, the way his stomach drops and he’s so aware of the distance between them. Even knowing that they share some of the same problems they’re also both aware that Steve’s family name continues to put him on another level entirely, forever suspended above Jonathan, the space between them infinitely greater than the three inches it would appear to be. He imagines reaching across, attempting the impossible to create that connection, when the other boy stands abruptly and begins to hurriedly clap the dirt and grass off the seat of his pants. 

“Sorry. I don’t know what got into me. Just being dumb again, right? But yeah, uh, I really gotta go, Byers.” His words are tumbling out fast, clumsily. “It’s...it’s real late, y’know?” Steve isn’t looking at him, his eyes instead staring somewhere into the middle distance over Jonathan’s shoulder. He desperately wishes he were brave enough to force Steve to make eye contact, to reassure him that it’s okay, that everything he said was okay and a secret that Jonathan will lock away and never tell to a single other soul. Instead he nods once and mumbles a simple “Yeah, guess so.”

For a moment Steve hesitates, hands jammed into his jeans pockets and the wind picking up to the point that it whips his normally perfectly styled hair in wild tufts around his face. The roundness of his cheeks and the line of his jaw are already subtly beginning to change Jonathan realizes in the low light. Vaguely in the depths of his expression he can see the young man Steve will become; still beautiful, with kind eyes and a strong jaw. Jonathan imagines for the briefest of seconds running his fingers along that smooth strip of skin, feeling it and learning it before it changes forever. Instead he buries his chin against his chest and stands up shakily, trying to hide the sudden warmth rushing to stain his face with a telltale blush.

“Uh, well, you-“ Steve begins to speak, then swallows awkwardly and shakes his head, like he’s telling himself that whatever he was going to say is unimportant. Jonathan wants to beg him to stop cutting himself off, to just tell him what he’s really thinking. It had seemed so easy for him earlier, forgetting for a short while that they are who they are and that they aren’t friends by any means. Jonathan feels like a fool for believing for a few sweet moments that things might ever change between them. Not that he wants to lean in to his soul’s weird obsession with the older boy, but he wouldn’t mind being friends with him, talking with him honestly and quietly like they had been. Except for his brother, Jonathan’s never really had anyone he could confide in, exchange secrets with. He probably never will is what he firmly fixes in his mind as he shrugs once more at Steve before turning and retreating back down the path to the foot of the quarry. He can only hope it looks like he’s moving at a normal comfortable pace and not at all like he’s trying to escape the scene of his crimes. His earlier thoughts about Steve make him feel like he’s done something wrong, though it’s not fully clear what. Vague half formed daydreams about feeling how soft his hair is, of stroking the line of his jaw before it fully takes shape, grows stubble, trouble him the entire journey. 

When he gets back home and has to deal with the worried eyes and desperate hugs of his mom and the drunken hollering of his father, Jonathan still feels like a criminal. He feels like he deserves all of Lonnie’s cruel words and open sneers. In the back of his head he hears that one word, that word that cuts him so deeply he can’t even say it to himself in the silence of his own thoughts, over and over.

When he wakes in the middle of the night from hazy dreams he can barely recall, but that leave him feeling dizzyingly warm and with his dick achingly hard inside his pyjama pants, Jonathan knows he is damned. Reluctant, but unable to will the desperate need away, he wraps a hand around himself and jerks off beneath the sheets as he pants and struggles not to say the name dancing so invitingly on his tongue. His climax is the best he’s felt yet in his short time exploring his own body and it makes him feel all the more dirty for that fact. If Lonnie knew what Jonathan had pictured as he’d gotten himself off, if he knew how far from his mind had been all the pictures of pinups and models his father had shown him, he’d be furious. He promises himself it’s a one time thing, an erroneous fantasy formed from the confusing and emotionally charged events of that evening. It takes until dawn for Jonathan to fall back asleep, but thankfully if he has any more dreams he doesn’t recall them upon waking. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


On the evening his mom finally kicks Lonnie out, the first time that Jonathan really believes she means it, he goes into her room late at night. She’s dressed in a flannel nightgown that balloons around her small bird-like frame, the fabric yellowed by age and cigarette smoke. She looks fragile, but he understands on some level that Joyce Byers has a spine made of steel. She meant what she said, and he no longer has to fear her opening the door and letting that man waltz back into their lives again. 

He’s grateful beyond words. He feels free. 

He wishes he could tell Steve how good it feels to come out from the darkness after you thought the night would never end. 

He can’t say any of that to the other boy though, so he talks to his mother instead. 

“What did dad’s aura look like?” Is what Jonathan asks, ripping the band-aid right off because he has an unspoken agreement with his mother that they love each other, and treat each other right, but they never coddle each other. They tell it like it is, because you can do that with the people you love the most.

Mom’s eyes are tired and far away, but she answers with a tinny laugh. “I never saw it. Not once. I said true love and soulmates were for storybooks and I took your father on because I wanted to prove I wasn’t some silly little girl.” She pauses, and her hand pets softly along the crown of his head, sorting locks of his hair between her thin fingers. “And I was wrong, Jonathan. I was so so wrong.”

He stares up into her sad face and sees a faint ghost of the young woman she once was peeking out with resolve shining brightly in her hazelnut eyes. His mother isn’t beaten, he knows that much for certain. Round one is over and she’s still standing, and so is he. They’ll keep each other on their feet and Lonnie will become nothing but a distant memory that only visits in the dwindling hours of the night when old regrets like to read their ugly heads.

“Don’t be wrong too, Jonathan,” she presses her lips to his forehead and whispers her plea against the fall of his bangs. “Find the one who’s right for you. Grab them and don’t let go, and love them fiercely.”

He doesn’t really understand but he nods anyway, looking up at her in some distress. Small tears have beaded at the corners of her eyes but she seems happier than she was when he first came in. Content with that he gives her a quick hug before he goes to leave.

“Jonathan?” She calls right before the door can click shut behind him and he pauses, straining to hear her soft words even in the hush of the evening hours. “I know you said you haven’t seen anyone’s aura, but...but if, when, you do…” he hears her sniff once before releasing a shaky sigh and he’s glad she can’t see his face, can’t see the way his eyes line with wetness. “When you do, just know...it’s okay. You’ll be okay, Jonathan. No matter what.”

He lets the door shut softly and runs to his room to dive beneath the covers before the first tear can fall. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Nancy Wheeler’s aura is often like a reflection of her eyes, a steady glowing blue. It’s like Nancy walks almost continually through a cloudless sky, bright and determined no matter what she faces. Well, usually. Every now and then Jonathan has caught sight of her aura flickering hotly, a simmering anger that lurks beneath all that calm pristine blue. She isn’t afraid to take a stand when she’s forced to, to make sure her voice is heard. Jonathan loves that about her. Loves the way she sees everything that would stop her as a challenge to be overcome instead. It’s far more appealing than Steve, who chooses to find ways to bend or break the rules without being caught, rather than facing anything directly. 

But that’s the problem. Steve. It’s always Steve, isn’t it? Jonathan would be tired of it if he hadn’t also become so numb to catching glimmers of the older boy’s aura. The day that he catches Steve’s colours turn bright pink, a bank of fluffy cotton candy clouds floating around his head, Jonathan’s stomach turns to lead. He knows the signs, knows instantly what it means, and there’s only one possible way he could have something in common with Steve when it came to these particular emotions. 

Nancy. 

Sure, Steve’s seen her before. They’ve been going to the same school almost every year for their entire lives. They only were apart whenever Steve would move to a new grade in a new school, and Nancy and Jonathan were left behind for a year until they caught up. This time though, it’s like he’s seeing her again for the first time and Jonathan is afraid he knows why. 

“Dykes!” A junior is barking at Nancy and Barb, his face flushed red and an angry scowl turning his lips downwards.

“Just because I said no,” Nancy is defending herself, words clipped and tinged with disgust. The older student has her and her friend all but pressed up in the corner of the hall. Jonathan can see a lock that must be digging painfully into Barb’s back. It isn’t her words that capture Steve’s attention though, Jonathan’s just sure of it. It’s the way her aura curls around her, a flicking wildfire of colour that burns with the intensity of her heart. It’s beautiful and awful and Jonathan has made peace with his own desperate longing for the girl, to know just what that fire would feel like as it burned along the edges of his own aura. If Steve can see the same thing Jonathan does, well, there’s no helping it. There’s no way Nancy Wheeler would choose Jonathan Byers over King Steve, the most popular, handsome boy in school.

After the brewing fight is brought to an abrupt end by the morning bell and a passing teacher, Jonathan notices as Nancy catches Steve watching her from the dispersing crowd. It’s like a fissure has formed in his heart when the wavering edges of her fires cool and become lapping waves of peony, all that brittle anger and righteous fury banked into a shy blossom of _want._

All Jonathan wants is to throw up.

It’s unfair. Life is unfair. He wishes he had never seen Nancy’s colours, wishes he could erase those brilliant images from his mind forever. A part of him thinks he doesn’t know how to live without ever being able to touch Nancy, to discover the warmth of her fires for himself. The dream is shattered now. There’s no way Jonathan will ever get close to Nancy if Steve can also see her aura. Most people their age only catch glimpses from the people most ideally suited to them in _all_ _the_ _world_. If Steve and Nancy saw each others’ auras...Jonathan’s fate is sealed. He can’t imagine either of them being willing to pass by such a miraculous opportunity, willing to take the chance that they’ll find someone else out there someday as perfect for them as each other. 

Jonathan watches with his broken heart bleeding out on the floor as the wisps of their auras reach out across the short distance between them. The colours float in the air, tentative and curious, pulsating with an intensity that is hard to wrap his head around, hard to conceptualize into words. They reach to each other like separate halves of a complete whole, something meant to be together. 

The second bell buzzes and the teacher walks through the swirling drifts of aura, causing the colours to reel back, thwarted. They flicker in and out a few times before fading gently into the normal light of the hallway, wan and yellow in the early morning sun. The moment is broken and Jonathan gasps, lungs burning from lack of air. He hadn’t realized he’d stopped breathing, that he’d been stuck watching motionless as Steve and Nancy had almost joined in one of the most intimate ways two people could. 

Jonathan doesn’t understand it. He turns on his heel and slams his bag and books back into his locker before taking off blindly. He winds up in the basement bathrooms, the ones closest to the dark room that’s become his second home. He locks himself in the single stall and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, pressure firm and unyielding. He doesn’t want to cry. He doesn’t want to shed tears over something he can’t help, can’t change. Why did he have to see that? No one had described it to him before. No one had told him what happened, what it looked like, when two people with compatible auras met for the first time, or at least met after their auras had somehow been pulled in sync with each other. He wants to forget it. He wants to relive it. He wishes he’d had a camera that could’ve captured the impossible image forever. The desperate longing of those soft cotton candy tendrils as they’d skimmed across the air to join together... It ruptured Jonathan’s poor heart into a mixture of such misery and such want that he felt paralyzed between the warring feelings. 

The worst part is that he understands. Being able to see both sides...he knows. They’re both so beautiful, filled with a light that dwarfed the sun as they stood in the school hall, so otherworldly in the most mundane of settings. They had shared a look. No, not a look. A _look._ Something so undeniably intimate that Jonathan knew it meant more than just a chance catching of each other’s gaze. What had happened between them in that moment was the sort of connection that Jonathan has secretly been hoping for his entire life. The unmistakable knowledge that he had found his other half. Despite all he’s done to dismiss or trivialize what auras mean, he can’t fool himself. Not forever. He wants what Nancy and Steve have found in each other. 

This is just the universe making him the butt of the joke once more. Lonely little outcast Jonathan Byers with his unwanted glimpses of Steve Harrington’s aura and his towering crush on the fiery Nancy Wheeler, playing sole witness to the moment when they deftly sidestepped around him to discover each other. He was just the fucking punchline to the story.

He waits until well after class has started, twenty minutes or more, before slipping out of the bathroom. No one ever has much reason to be walking down the back halls so there aren’t any teachers or monitors watching for truants. Jonathan hikes his dilapidated backpack high on his shoulder and keeps his head down as he rushes from the school building. On the off chance that someone official is around they’ll be less likely to question him if he looks like he’s headed somewhere with a purpose. The problem is coming up with some idea of where he actually wants to go. 

His mom is working the late shift, so she’ll still be at home, probably nursing a coffee and a cigarette at the kitchen dinette. Anywhere in town is a definite no, since everyone would know he should be in school, not out roaming the streets. Reluctantly Jonathan heads to the one place he knows he won’t be bothered; the quarry. 

What had once been his refuge and sanctuary has forever been painted in a new light by Steve. Jonathan could no longer just sit on the cliff top and contentedly space out like he used to. Every time he visits here he feels like somehow Steve is with him, or watching him from just beyond his view. He can still recall that first striking image of him standing at the cliff’s edge with such clarity that Jonathan has moments where his heart leaps into his throat, reliving that sense of panic. The last thing he wants right now is a reminder of Steve, but there’s nowhere else he can go. 

Picking up a few loose rocks stamped lightly into the soil, Jonathan sits on the bank down near the shallows and hucks stones into the murky water. The ripples fan out lazily across the surface, the sky a muted green in the reflection it casts. He remains lounging on the bank long after his available ammunition has been used up, just staring at his reflection dismally.

Of course Nancy would pick Steve. It doesn’t matter if Jonathan had seen her first, or if Jonathan had seen _Steve_ first. He doesn’t have a claim on either of them, and they looked...they looked….

They don’t look like _him_.

They’re beautiful. They suit each other. Neither is a loner weirdo who spends most of his time hiding behind a camera lens or developing film in a tiny room that stinks of chemicals and is lit in harsh crimson. Jonathan feels very much like someone who belongs in the dark. He can’t say the same of either Steve or Nancy. He’s seen their auras. Seen the bright beautiful bloom of their colours dancing on the air. They deserve each other. 

He keeps telling himself that, keeps trying to convince himself it’s the truth. It is, really. They _do_ deserve each other. They’ll make a good couple, pretty and popular and just the kind of material that will make for a perfect high school romance. Their peers are going to eat it up. They’ll be shoo-ins to be voted Prom King and Queen in a year’s time. Steve will probably be going to college somewhere close, his options pretty limited if the rumours about his grades are true. From their talk on the cliff years ago Jonathan would assume things haven’t changed. Maybe when Nancy graduates Steve will follow her to whatever school she wants to go to and they’ll live happily ever after in some city along the coast and never think of Jonathan Byers, local weirdo, ever again.

His heart hurts too much to bear. Sneaking home once he’s certain his mom has left for work, Jonathan creeps carefully into her room. Nestled in an old jewelry box buried in the bottom drawer of her dresser, hidden beneath the spare towels, is a baggie half full of weed. She doesn’t smoke it often, but he knows from the telltale scent that every once in a while she’ll secretly have a joint when she’s sure both Jonathan and his brother will be out for a while. Whether or not she’s aware of the fact that he does it too is a question for another day. It isn’t often, but sometimes he just needs a little something to slow his racing thoughts back down to a regular speed. He supposes that he takes after her in that fashion. 

One joint later, hotboxed in his car for maximum efficiency, and Nancy and Steve are the last thing on his mind. In a little over a year and a half, with any luck, Jonathan will be in New York, attending the college of his dreams, and he won’t have to see any more unwanted auras for the rest of his life. The odds are stacked against him ever finding another perfect match, after all. With the weed muddling his head and soothing his heart, Jonathan, for the moment, feels okay with that. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


He tells himself he’s okay. He is. Okay. Okay? He’s okay with it. He says it again and again and almost believes it right up until the moment he looks over Nancy’s shoulder and sees Steve watching them with a dour expression on his face. 

He’s prepared for it to hurt, but it’s like his ribs are being split open and his heart is left exposed to the elements. He can’t deal with this right now, don’t they _get_ that?

He’s mumbling his thanks and trying to escape because hearing Nancy awkwardly make platitudes about his missing brother isn’t something that is _okay_. Not at all. 

His head dips and he just wants to scream at them. He wants to be left alone for once (but isn’t that a laugh? Jonathan’s _always_ been alone). He doesn’t need them or their auras chasing him relentlessly. His shoulders can’t support their weight as well as his mother’s.

He’s flying out the door and almost tripping down the steps, but he can’t get away from them fast enough. Will is _missing_ and their happiness is cruelly carving away pieces of his sanity right now, something he feels he has precious little to spare. 

His mom always tells him that he’s strong, he’s tough. He’s always been there for her, helping to hold their family up. A dark glimmer in the back of his mind is full of resentment, knows how unfair it is that she’s forced him to become this, because she wasn’t enough to do it alone, and she chose a man who none of them could depend on. Her love turned Jonathan into someone desperate to stand on his own, too afraid to lean into love and let it support him. Sometimes he’s afraid he hates his mom just like he hates Steve and Nancy right now for showing him a glimpse of something beautiful that he can never take part in.

He hates and loves in equal measure and if it gets him through the bad times who’s to say it’s not healthy?

He’s okay. He truly truly is. He might just be the only one who is, but it’s true. He has to be. 

Will needs him. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Punching Steve Harrington in his perfect fucking face was like some sort of divinely provided catharsis. It felt _amazing._

Well, actually it sort of hurt. Not just his fists, because although they _do_ hurt, the pain goes much deeper. He’d already known how easily and comfortably poisonous words fell from the other boy’s lips. He was there when Steve had all but directly called Jamie Braun a queer, so it shouldn’t have been surprising to find himself on the receiving end of that kind of slur now.

It hurts for another reason. Steve _knew_ how to attack Jonathan, understood his weak points and sunk his teeth in right down to the bone. They had shared an understanding once upon a time, staring sad and lonely and close together down into the quarry. They knew what was really thrumming just below each other’s skin, the wounds that could be exposed so easily with the right words. Jonathan has heard his family disrespected and laughed at from behind cupped hands for most of his life, but none of those people knew what they were talking about. They were just rehashing the rumours and gossip that had been circulating for years. But not Steve. Steve _knew_ , and that gave his words power.

That’s why it had felt equally as powerful to rearrange Steve’s face with his bare knuckles. Deeply personal, like it needed to be. 

He can’t get the look in the other boy’s eyes to leave the front of his mind, still stamped there every time he closes his eyes. It’s a touch disconcerting, and also highly distracting. He really doesn’t need the intrusive memories right now, he needs to focus on more important matters. 

Will. 

Nancy. 

The monster that lives in the impossible world on the other side of the tree and hunts in theirs. 

Jonathan furrows his brows and continues to steadily pound nails into the bat Nancy had brought with her. It was maybe a bit desperate of a weapon, but it would have to do. With their trap it shouldn’t need to be used. It’s more in the nature of a ‘just in case’ measure. Neither gun nor bat should have to see action if everything goes according to plan.

Nancy’s questions aren’t part of his plan though and yet he finds himself having to dodge them nonetheless. 

“Talk to me, Jonathan!” She finally demands, blue eyes sparking with fire as she stands directly in front of him. It shouldn’t be so intimidating coming from someone much shorter than himself, but Nancy has a knack for towering over people when the mood strikes her. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Jonathan knows she’s armed, not that he thinks she’d ever turn the gun on a human being.

“I don’t know what it is you expect me to say,” Jonathan mutters, pushing past her with a burst of courage that surprises even him.

“What Steve said. The fight. You’ve been different ever since!”

“Oh, I’m sorry if that dirtbag saying a bunch of messed up shit about my family is supposed to just roll off my back.”

“I know what he said was awful, but he—“ Nancy draws her sentence up short, and when Jonathan looks back over his shoulder at the girl she’s staring moodily at her feet and shifting uncomfortably. 

He scoffs, cold and harsh. “Oh come _on_. Are you really going to try telling me he didn’t mean it or some shit?”

“He didn’t. He’s...yeah, he’s a jerk. I’m pissed at him too, but I know. I _know_ he didn’t want to say those things.”

“Well, that didn’t stop him.”

Fuck. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. He just wants to kill a monster and get his little brother back and save his mother from the precipice she seems to have been teetering on since Will vanished. He doesn’t need Nancy to actually defend _Steve fucking Harrington_ while standing in his own living room. Looking at Nancy though, Jonathan understands. The look in her eyes and the firm set of her jaw. She’s defending Steve because she isn’t lying. She knows. 

She knows, just like Jonathan himself knows. 

The colour of his hate had come as a surprise to Jonathan; it was a deep rich blue. Ultramarine. Roiling and vast, like an ocean. Steve had been drowning in it as he had ranted at the two of them, as he spouted all the ugliest words contained in his heart. It had spilled from him like a waterfall the same way it had when they were children, Steve unable to stop himself as his thoughts and betrayal poured out.

But that _blue_ . God. It had been so pure, so absolutely engulfing, and Jonathan couldn’t help but know what it meant. Hatred, yes. _Self-_ hatred. Even as he attacked Jonathan he’d been at war with himself, hurt and hate clashing as he gave in to his worst instincts and knew that what he was doing was wrong. In the end Steve was too much a coward to talk about how he was really feeling. Too scared to send Tommy and his other friends away and just ask Nancy what was going on. That’s all it would’ve taken to solve the problem without it spiraling out of control.

Jonathan doesn’t say any of this, though. The words stick stubbornly in his throat like they have all his life. Something still whispers to him that if anyone finds out that he can see the other boy’s aura he’ll be rejected. He’ll become even more of an outcast than he already is. He can’t afford to take that chance with Nancy. Not when he’s gotten so close to her. Even if he spends his life stuck in distant orbit of her, he would still be content, warmed by the moments when her calm and orderly aura sparks and catches flame. He can’t tell her the truth.

“Jonathan…?”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”

“I know that’s not true either.” Her voice is so steady, so calm in its complete faith in what she’s saying. She is truly unwavering, her and her aura such a perfect reflection of each other. 

He feels his expression screw up in confusion, the words passing through his head feeling somehow foreign, incomprehensible. She’s looking at him steadily, chin tilted up and a challenge in her eyes, and she looks beautiful. She’s something beyond a dream, so painfully real and right in front of him, like she’s willing him to _look_. With a suddenness that feels like falling from an unfathomable height, he understands. Like she knew Steve hadn’t wanted to hurt Jonathan, she can also see just how successful the older boy had been. He’s floored. How she can be so bold and upfront about...about… “You can…” Jonathan licks his lips, feeling like all the moisture has been sucked from the room, leaving him brittle enough to crumble to dust. “You can see my…?” He can’t say it. Doesn’t dare. To get his hopes up, to give them a name...it’s unthinkable. He’s admired Nancy Wheeler from afar for years, stealing quick sidelong glances at her in the halls at school and when he dropped off his brother to play with Mike. It just isn’t possible that she had looked at him in return, had seen…

“I have.”

Nancy Wheeler is a much braver soul than either Steve or Jonathan, that’s a fact he can’t deny.

He feels numb. Detached from the world spinning around him. He never expected that Nancy would ever in a million years see his aura, moreover that she would just… tell him. She just went ahead and told him. Jonathan had been too afraid, too nervous to ever say anything to her. She took the plunge instead. All the more reason to admire her, he supposes. He opens his mouth to reply, to share with her all the times he has seen her aura. He wants to tell her how beautiful she is in her strength and resilience, how her aura illuminates her entire being, filling her with righteous fire. There is so much he’s been holding inside, so much he’s wanted to say. Jonathan has no idea where to even begin. How do you distill ten years of watching and hoping and longing into words?

He can’t. He just can’t. Not now. He _wants_ to. He wants to just sit with their knees close together, heads bowed into each other’s space as they share years of secret glimpses and sidelong looks. He wants to give her his heart, as meagre an offering as it might make.

But...

Will needs him. Will needs Jonathan to be strong enough to put aside his own personal desires and focus on the task at hand. And Jonathan can do that. His mother has always told him he was strong, but really he’s just been putting his own feelings aside for so long that another few hours won’t matter in the long run. Well, so long as both he and Nancy are alive in a few hours. It’s not unreasonable to think they might not be. Jonathan’s prepared to give his life before hers, protect hers at any cost. As long as Will and Nancy make it through the night alive, Jonathan can accept any other outcomes.

Sensing the thoughts spinning wildly through his mind despite his outward silence, Nancy reaches up and lays a comforting hand on Jonathan’s shoulder, squeezing softly. “We’ll get him back,” she reassures him, voice filled with a confidence Jonathan wishes he could feel too. “We’ll talk about the rest after. Right now we just need to help bring Will home and kill that monster. That’s what we have to do.”

With a single nod Jonathan agrees and turns back to survey their handiwork with a critical eye. He breathes deep, filling his lungs in an attempt to steady his growing anxiety. “We’re almost ready.”

“Yeah. I’ll get the knife.”

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


The day Nancy finally accepts his contrition and agrees to date him again Steve Harrington swallows the sun. It pulses in his chest to the beat of his heart, as proud and strong as a marching band. 

It refuses to diminish. Weeks and weeks pass and Steve remains as luminous as the first day Nancy took his hand in hers again. The light pouring off of the other boy is almost painful in its intensity. Jonathan has to physically angle himself away from Steve and Nancy’s table in the lunchroom. It’s only so effective, as the glowing boy spots him across the distance and enthusiastically waves him over. 

Things have been… _odd_ since they faced down a nightmare in the Byers’ living room. Since that night Jonathan has been able to see both Nancy and Steve’s auras nearly constantly. Usually it’s just a faint edge of colour, a red flash of determination, the wan chartreuse of boredom, waves of light pink hope, but this is ridiculous. Warm golden light is assaulting Jonathan’s eyes as he approaches the couple, lunch tray gripped in claw-like hands. If he doesn’t join them Steve will simply drag Nancy over and plop down like he belongs there. Maybe he does? Jonathan can see both their auras, but although he knows Nancy has seen glimmers of his, Steve has never said a thing. 

Jonathan wonders if maybe he’s just broken. Maybe his ability works differently. Perhaps he’s more like a soulmate detector, able to see the halves that will add up to a whole. He can see both Nancy and Steve’s auras, and they increase in intensity when the two are in close proximity to each other. Even when they were broken up, Jonathan could tell how far apart they were based on the saturation of their colours. Now that they’re back together their auras have blended along their edges, colours swirling and embracing as their emotions complement each other. Nancy’s is a pale but steady blue. She’s sad but content, trying to focus on moving forward. Steve is hard to look at, even if he’s trying to be sensitive and not act like he’s over the moon to be Nancy’s boyfriend again. Does Nancy know just how bad Steve has it for her? She never admitted if she could see his aura, she merely implied it. That night, though. He’s certain he saw her looking at Steve the same way he himself had, awed by the sheer force of the light pouring off of him. He’d been an angel, a heavenly warrior streaming clouds of glory as he twirled a nail studded bat to beat the devil back to hell. 

God fucking _damn_ Jonathan wishes he had gotten a picture of the other boy in that moment. Nothing has ever been as beautiful as Steve finally finding himself in the act of saving Jonathan and Nancy’s lives. He’s certain she saw it too. She saw the real boy who hides behind the lies he projects to the world outside. She saw what Jonathan has been catching glimpses of since his first memories of meeting the other boy. Has Nancy ever seen Steve wear those colours? Is that why she agreed to date him in the first place? For most people the notion of dating a king would be good enough, but Nancy isn’t the type to be so easily satisfied. Yet here she sits now, fingers linked with Steve’s beneath the scratched and worn tabletop, proud pale blue a perfect circle around her soft curves.

He feels now more than ever like they belong together, like his first hurt feelings upon seeing their auras stretching toward each other were prophetic and everything he’s feared about them being a perfect couple is true. It stings a little to admit, but at the same time he feels a small blossom of happiness for them. Despite the weird circumstances that brought them to this time and place, openly sharing a table amongst their peers, practically inviting the gossip that is sure to follow, Jonathan is happy. Somehow Steve and Nancy have become a part of his life. Seeing them is becoming his new routine. Eating and talking with them between classes, stopping in to say hi to the couple when he drops off Will, or just waving when Steve and Nancy come to the theatre to catch a film and spend a few brief minutes with him engaged in small talk. 

Jonathan even has a few small suspicions about the camera that Nancy presented him with back at Christmas. This friendship developing between them was new and tenuous then. He and Steve hadn’t really said much to each other since that night in Jonathan’s living room. He knows cameras though, and the model he now customarily wears everywhere he goes is well above Nancy’s weekly allowance. Even if she saved every dime between November and Christmas Eve she still wouldn’t have had enough to buy it. Steve is involved somehow, but hasn’t taken even a cent of the credit.

It’s weird, having to admit privately that he really likes this new Steve. Is he really all that new, though? To most, probably. To Jonathan it seems more like a return to form. He’s known the young man chattering casually across from him, an inviting smile curling his soft lips and his hair styled to immaculate perfection. He still looks like a king to Jonathan, maybe now more than ever, even if the rest of their school seems to think he’s become a pauper. If Steve misses the adulation he’s skilled at hiding it. Jonathan knows how good Steve is at tucking away his real feelings behind a mask, but this doesn’t seem like the case. The bright glow of his heart is unfaltering and his eyes belong to Nancy alone. Maybe somewhere deep inside he does miss the attention of their classmates, but he seems to have found something worth a whole lot more to him. 

Letting his gaze drift from his face to hers, Jonathan understands. Nancy’s warm smile as she leans in and rests her temple against Steve’s cheek is the kind of gesture worth slaying dragons and braving the dangerous wilds for. If Nancy asked for the moon Jonathan knows that the both of them would be off constructing rickety ladders in a heartbeat, each eager to bring the girl her deepest desire, as impractical as it may be. Nancy isn’t so fanciful, though. They’ll make a good pair, as their auras clearly illustrate. 

Someday...someday maybe he’ll tell them. What they look like when they’re together, how bright they shine.

For now it’s Jonathan’s little secret. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


When he wakes up to knocking on his front door at barely past seven in the morning Jonathan is not pleased. It doesn’t help that the rapping noise he can hear is jauntily rhythmic, like it’s meant to be in time with a particular song. An upbeat song. The bigger problem is that the person behind the annoying nuisance also refuses to give up. Jonathan watches as his clock ticks through a full three minutes and the sound doesn’t stop. He doesn’t think it will any time soon either. Hoisting a sheet around his waist rather than searching for a pair of pants like his more awake self would have preferred, Jonathan stomps noisily down the hallway and toward the front door. It’s only then that the knocking stops, and he dares think to himself that he’s somehow managed to dodge this bullet. When he hasn’t answered the door in thirty seconds the pounding resumes, and now that he’s closer he can hear a whistled tune accompanying it. A scowl darkening his features, Jonathan slams into his door and sends it flying open harder than necessary. 

If the boy on his porch is startled he shows no sign, dancing out of range of getting his face broken with lightning reflexes. His smile remains fixed in place and his hair perfect. Only Steve Harrington can be this cheery in the morning when there was no reason to be. Ignoring the openly hostile look on Jonathan’s face, Steve launches instantly into speech. 

“Hey there, man! Great day, right? Well, listen, I was thinking all last night and I came up with this great idea, okay? Really great. Ready for this? We should go camping!” He blasts out the last sentence like he expects it to be an exciting or appealing notion, arms flying dramatically wide, eyes twinkling as brightly as the morning sun. 

It’s a testament to the fact that Jonathan has somehow grown accustomed to Steve’s abrupt and absurd nature that he doesn’t slam the door closed right in his handsome face.

“It is the first day of summer vacation,” Jonathan points out matter-of-factly, eyes squinted against the sunlight streaming onto the porch. He shuffles backwards a few steps in spite of himself, hoping to avoid the headache he can already feel trying to take root. Steve, being Steve, takes this as an invitation to enter, pulling the door shut behind himself. He walks a small circle around the Byers’ living room, eyes dancing over the tables of knick-knacks and worn out furniture with interest. For some reason he seems to like what he sees, nodding to himself in satisfaction the whole time. Finally he stops in the middle of the rug and turns back to Jonathan.

“So, it’s a great idea, yeah? A weekend away, out in the woods. Cooking our own meals, sleeping under the stars!”

“Getting eaten by a demogorgon,” Jonathan adds snidely, folding himself into a chair, blanket bunching up uncomfortably warm around his midsection.

“Nah,” Steve flaps his hand limply like he was shooing the notion away, like it’s that easy to dismiss. “I’ve been going to my Granddad’s cabin for years and years. Nothing out there except the odd bear. And hey! You’ve already got a bear trap. See, it’s perfect!”

“Perfect,” Jonathan repeats, unable to help the snort he makes after. “Sounds like hell,” he replies honestly. He isn't even remotely an outdoorsy person. His father had successfully killed any part of him that might’ve enjoyed such activities on the same day he forced his son to shoot a rabbit.

Steve’s shoulders turn inward, like he feels the need to take up less room, become harder to see. The smile stays on his face but something about it is wrong, like a painting, static and eternal. Steve laughs halfheartedly, slouching down onto the couch and scratching the soft short hair that tickles the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“I guess it’s not so great an idea after all, huh? I just thought, maybe some time away, out of Hawkins, would do us some good? Nancy…” he hesitates, tongue swiping quickly across his lips. “She’s been having a hard time lately. All the stress from exams and stuff. Thinking about what her and Barb would be doing this summer….We go see her parents for dinner a couple times a month, but it’s just been weighing on her more.”

Jonathan blinks in surprise, pulling himself just far enough out of his shitty early morning mood to take a considering glance at his company. Steve’s head is slightly ducked down, and his bangs are falling across most of his forehead, hiding his eyes from view. It’s gotten longer and Jonathan thinks it suits him well, a little more relaxed, a little less pompous than how he wore his hair as King Steve. Not that he’s about to tell _him_ that. Still, he came to Jonathan’s at an ungodly hour of morning on the first day of vacation with an idea he thought might help Nancy feel better. Every now and then he’s startled to realize just how often Steve puts other people first. He never noticed before because the people benefiting from Steve’s generosity were assholes like Tommy and Carol.

“It…” he sighs, not wanting to encourage Steve, but feeling like he has to plunge in directly. “It’s not a _bad_ idea,” Jonathan begins, holding back a snicker when his friend’s head jerks back up with warmth brimming in his amber eyes. “I’m not a morning person though. I refuse to have a talk about this at seven a.m.”

“Technically it’s closer to eight now.”

“That’s what I said. The asscrack of morning. I’m going to go back to bed. We can talk later. We’ve got all summer.” He stands and winces as his back audibly cracks, feeling far older than a soon-to-be high school junior. 

Rising with a stretch, Steve nods at him. “Sounds good,” he agrees. “I didn’t sleep much last night, I was thinking about this over and over again. Only got an hour or two.” That said, Steve doesn’t make a move towards the front door like Jonathan expects, just stands in front of him like he’s waiting for something. An invitation to leave maybe?

“Are you going to…?” Jonathan points back over his shoulder with a questioning look, eyes darting between Steve and the front door.

Steve follows his gaze back and forth several times, not appearing to get the hint until a dawning understanding crests in his eyes. “Oh. Oh, I thought I’d just…” he joins the pointing game by gesturing down the hall to Jonathan’s bedroom. “Y’know, so we can talk later.”

Jonathan had not meant that so literally, but is far from surprised that Steve has taken it that way. What _does_ surprise the living hell out of him is the seeming notion that Steve was planning on casually joining Jonathan in the _privacy of his bedroom for a nap._ No. That is definitely not on the list of things he ever would have anticipated when he got up to answer Steve’s incessant knocking. 

Realizing that the silence is growing increasingly more awkward by the second and that Steve is likely to feel rejected if not outright offended by Jonathan’s behaviour, he gives in with a shrug and turns to head down the hallway. It’s only because it’s morning and he is barely awake that the next words manage to pass his lips unchecked. “I’m not wearing pants.”

Steve’s laughter follows Jonathan down the hall. When he tosses a blanket and pillow at him, which Steve catches effortlessly, he’s content to curl up on the floor at the foot of Jonathan’s bed and is softly snoring within minutes. It would be endearing if it didn’t make Jonathan keenly aware of the other presence in his room, chasing sleep to the furthest corners of his mind. He likes Nancy. Steve also likes Nancy. Hell, _loves_ Nancy, at least in the way that convinces teenagers that no one else could have possibly felt a love this deep or strong before and that it will last forever. Usually forever arrives around the beginning of the next month, maybe even semester if the couple is particularly well suited to each other. The biggest problem is that Jonathan...Jonathan has never been able to put how he feels about Steve into words. Their past has been full of weird encounters and rising tensions, all chaos and confusion. At times he’s known with absolute certainty that he hated the older boy. At other times...Jonathan flushes uncomfortably to think about what he’d done in this very bed mere years ago, thinking of Steve and promising himself it would never happen again. He doesn’t know what to do with these conflicting emotions except to bury them. Steve loves Nancy, and Nancy chose him. Jonathan’s feelings for either of them don’t matter. They simply can’t. 

Ignoring the way his insides writhe and churn painfully, Jonathan grabs his Walkman (one he bought second hand and has had to keep repairing with increasing amounts of glue and scotch tape) and pulls the earphones over his head. Pressing play his world is drowned out by the reedy strains of Echo and the Bunnymen. 

“ _Here am I_

_Whole at last with a golden view_

_Looking for hope_

_And I hope it's you_

_Splitting my heart_

_Cracked right in two_

_The pleasure of pain endured_

_To purify our misfit ways_

_And magnify our crystal days”_

The words are poisonous, aiming for his heart with deadly accuracy. It feels refreshing to just wallow in the hurt while Steve lies less than five feet away blissfully unaware. Eyes finally fluttering shut, Jonathan sighs and lets go. He gives himself the much needed permission to forget about Steve, forget about Nancy, and just float away with the music. He dreams of pink wallpaper, strawberry lip gloss, and the harsh scratch of stubble. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


The first surprise Jonathan receives during their hastily planned camping trip is that it’s less painful than he assumed to ride along in the backseat of Steve’s car, listening half-heartedly as the couple in the front seat banter animatedly. The scenery whips past in blotches of colour that Jonathan can hardly make out, each stretch of the barren road much the same as all the others before it. If he was the type who could fall asleep during road trips he probably would. 

The second surprise is that Steve’s idea of camping is severely screwed up compared to the average teenager. Jonathan was envisioning a tiny ramshackle cabin (sadly not much unlike his own house) with a circle of logs out front stationed around an ancient fire pit. Add in a dark mysterious lake guarded by a dock that had seen better days back when Herbert Hoover was in power, and you’d have a snapshot of Jonathan’s mental image. Instead, Steve’s grandfather’s cabin shares more of its DNA with a Swiss ski lodge than the Byers’ abode. It has two floors and a balcony that opens up to face towards a glistening blue sliver of water coursing through the heart of the Indiana wilderness. His mouth slams shut the instant he realizes that they’ve stopped because this is the place they’ve been driving towards all along. It would feel like a betrayal of his entire family if he spends even a single word complimenting Steve’s ‘cabin’.

Steve is all but oblivious to the googly eyes Jonathan is casting at the cottage, but he manages to share a look with Nancy that makes him feel less like he’s the insane one in the trio. Nancy’s been here once before, they had mentioned. She could have at least warned him what to expect. By the small smile ghosting over her lips he senses that she was looking forward to seeing his reaction. Wryly Jonathan hopes he didn’t let her down.

Steve made himself perfectly clear when he had suggested this trip to Jonathan; It’s all about trying to make Nancy feel happy, or at least provide her with a small distraction to keep her mind from dwelling on a past they are helpless to change. If that means being the butt of a harmless joke for her sake, well, Jonathan is man enough to take it. Coming from her, at least. If Steve had been the one laughing behind his hands at Jonathan’s mawkish stares toward the cabin, that would have been a different story. Not that he sincerely thinks he would. Steve’s been...trying. He’s been trying so hard it’s almost painful for Jonathan to watch as he goes to great lengths to include him in their activities, to make room for their very own third wheel. Nancy had privately assured Jonathan that his presence this weekend was wanted by both of them, but it doesn’t do much to settle the way his stomach churns as he watches them flit effortlessly around each other as they begin unpacking Steve’s car. It makes a whole lot more sense now why they had so much room for all their belongings. The cabin, which is such a gross understatement that Jonathan feels fit to be tied, seems well equipped with everything they might need. He does note the fancy coffee maker sitting on the kitchen counter with a sigh of relief. It’s deeply reassuring to know he won’t have to face Steve’s early morning irrepressible nature without a dose of caffeine to buffer him. 

There are more bedrooms than there are guests, so they each pick a room and dump their bags inside. Jonathan bites his lip before he can suggest that Steve and Nancy drop the pretenses for his sake and just claim a room for themselves together. Jonathan’s not a shy bumbling twelve year old anymore, he can handle the idea that the two are almost certainly going to wind up sleeping together this weekend. He is however a shy bumbling seventeen year old, so he doesn’t want to actually encourage the pair to have sex the moment his back is turned. He suspects Steve has already considered the situation and has plans on how to deal with it, if any part of his former reputation is to be believed. 

Once everything is unpacked and they’ve had a drink from the cooler Steve had dragged along they sit lazily draped over the furniture in the cabin’s common space, a fire newly lit and flickering in the hearth. It’s too hot for a fire, but Steve had been adamant, and the other two were too tired to raise more than a token protest. The way the lights gleam in Steve’s eyes as he strokes Nancy’s arm in long languid sweeps make it more than worth it. Still, it strikes Jonathan as such a waste to have both a fire and the air conditioning going at the same time.

“So, what do you think, Byers?” Steve tosses his way, leaning forward just a touch to peek around Nancy’s profile, his expression bright and eager.

“ _Cabins_ don’t have A/C,” is the most salient point he can muster up and he feels pretty proud for putting that many words together. He feels better when Nancy has to stifle a loud snicker in the couch cushions, her eyes squeezing tightly shut like it might help her hold the laughter in.

“Yeah, yeah. I know you like it, Byers,” the other teen rolls his eyes, the dryness of his voice contradicted by the fondness of his features. “Just wait til nighttime, it’s beautiful,” he enthuses, giving Nancy a quick glance. 

Nancy, as ever, picks up on Steve’s need to be reassured. “Yeah, it’s really lovely at night. There are a million stars.” Jonathan watches the way Steve relaxes at her words, the way his suddenly tense shoulders loosen and his smile deepens into something that makes him seem more real, more like a fully fledged person. Jonathan’s spent so many years of his life silently narrating to himself what goes on with the older boy, piecing together his life story in crude chunks as he catches glimpses of his feelings from a distance that always stretches too wide between them. It’s a divide that Jonathan has been hesitant about crossing since he had just started eighth grade. Every time he opens up to Steve he feels just a little closer to letting his mouth get carried away and ruining everything by spilling the truth. It’s best to keep a tight lid on his thoughts and let his teeth gnash the words before they ever get the chance to surface.

They’re both right, though. Jonathan has his camera in hand as the golden hour descends over them, his shutter whirring as he snaps picture after picture of the sun-drenched landscape. Nancy’s been teasing him for taking pictures of them enjoying their time rather than participating for himself, but to Jonathan this _is_ fun. Capturing the rare moment when a genuine smile rises through Nancy’s careworn expression to gently wipe the sadness from her eyes is something Jonathan would hate himself for missing. The distracted look on her face as she leans by the cabin’s door, her hair lifting in rolling curls as she looks toward the water. The mischievous look she sends Jonathan before dumping a cup-full of ice down the back of Steve’s swim trunks. Perhaps this is why he’s here. So they have evidence that Nancy can find a way to feel whole again, that she can still laugh even without Barb at her side. It might take a long time, but until she accepts moving forward alone they’ll have this reminder that it’s possible. 

Nancy disappears inside to start dinner, which is thankfully a simple task. It’s not typical camping fare, but the cupboards are teeming with cans of stew and soup and it feels like the easiest option after a tiring day. Jonathan walks around aimlessly, focusing on whatever catches his eye, but taking few pictures. He saves his film for what he now understands is his true purpose for being there with them.

As he sweeps the shoreline he catches Steve standing at the end of the dock, arms bent at the elbow and he can only imagine the boy has them crossed over his chest. A chest that Steve is very much not bothered about having uncovered as he walks around half naked all day. Jonathan knows he’s overreacting, he’s seen plenty of men without their shirts on. Steve, as always, is a different matter. He’s trim, but not super muscular, just a faint hint of definition that creates curves and dips in his speckled skin. He’s got a small patch of chest hair that he seems almost adorably self conscious about, how it looks like soft peach fuzz across his pecs. He’s almost a man now. They both are. It’s hard to imagine how far they’ve come from childhood to arrive at this point together. 

Helpless against the sudden desire welling up in his heart, he raises the viewfinder to his eye once more. The last sparkling rays of crimson bleed across the distant pines and float heavily on the gently rippling surface of the lake, setting the scene on fire. As he depresses the shutter button a blossom of colour haloes Steve, blotting out the red-gold sun, but it’s gone the moment he drops the camera in his surprise. An uneasy feeling spreads through his veins and he decides that it’s time to drag the other boy back to the house for some food. Steve stands tall and perfect against the vivid sky, and Jonathan can simply tell that something is off in his features. Some phantom worry lies behind his placid exterior. All he knows is that for the moment he wants to get Steve as far away from the water as he can. Standing on the edge of the dock is too reminiscent of the quarry, some strange echo of the memory calling out to Jonathan. The other teen doesn’t fight it when his hand curls around Steve’s bicep and pulls him back towards the small strand of beach that outlines the lake.

Jonathan isn’t much for drinking thanks to his father, but Steve doesn’t seem to have any compunctions as he lifts two six packs from the cooler after dinner and sets them down by the enormous fire pit at the south end of the cabin. He hums idly as he busies himself getting together some kindling and a cord of wood that the family keeps stashed under the eaves behind the house. Jonathan can’t help it if he takes a few pictures of the boy at work, zooming in to study the intent look on Steve’s face, the play of the muscles in his back as he lifts each log and places it _just so_ in the pit. The light isn’t great, but it will make for a moody atmosphere that Jonathan can appreciate and he looks forward to seeing how they’ll turn out once he’s back in the darkroom.

Everything is fun until it’s not. Three teens sitting around a giant billowing fire is not usually accompanied by a dead silence broken only when Steve jabs open a new bottle of booze with a fob on his key ring. Nancy is staring with heavy eyes into the fire, and it’s so much less than the warm vibrancy of her aura that she looks wan and faded out beside it in comparison. Jonathan, being Jonathan, doesn’t know how to break the fragile mood the couple has descended into and so he plays with the settings on his camera with such an intense focus that a marching band could wind right through their circle and he wouldn’t even notice. Barb was in the marching band, he catches himself thinking. So is that girl that sat behind him in second grade. Robin. She hasn’t changed much in the intervening years, with her intense covert stares and chunky costume jewelry. Their names are next to each other in alphabetical order, Buckley and Byers, so he’s gotten used to seeing her around. He almost wishes it had been her that the Demogorgon had eaten, if only to spare himself and Steve the company of this pale and listless version of Nancy Wheeler that they’ve been fostering since her best friend died. That isn’t fair though. Robin’s nice, if maybe a bit snide and moody. She certainly doesn’t deserve to be eaten by a monster, but then, neither did Barb. 

As if sensing where Jonathan’s thoughts have led, Nancy stands abruptly and announces that she’s going to bed. He’s tired too and makes as if to follow, but Steve hasn’t moved an inch. He takes another swig from his bottle and gives the two a fake smile. “Sounds good. Sleep well,” he intones in a hollow register as his eyes slide back to the fire.

Jonathan exchanges a glance with Nancy, but her eyes are dull and too exhausted to put in any effort. She turns on her heel and walks back into the house, the darkness inside swallowing her up the moment she’s across the threshold. He hesitates. All he wants to do is follow after her, make sure that it’s just his tired mind seeing ghosts and demons where none exist, and fall into a nice long sleep. He returns to the fire instead because something in his gut doesn’t want to leave Steve alone like this, even if it is the guy’s own fault.

He’s not sure what to expect once they’re alone. If the tales are true then King Steve is a riveting drunk. Entertaining, lively, guileless in his ability to charm even those who know the guy is wasted. He has a way of winning people over that always shines through. This Steve is silent and sullen, his attention never wavering from the fire. He wonders if he’s comparing it to Nancy, much like Jonathan himself had earlier. Does Steve want that Nancy back as badly as Jonathan does, or would he rather this subdued and worn down woman that has replaced her? If he brought Jonathan along to take pictures and try to help make her laugh then he has to believe in the former. Not even King Steve in the height of his glory days could possibly want the brittle girl who had sunk back into the cabin’s dark interior without a second word.

Jonathan asks for a drink, then asks for another. Then one more. He’s not actually drinking most of them. He takes small sips when Steve’s eyes slip slowly to the side to watch him, and dumps more out into the grass behind his seat when he’s staring into the fire. He’s midway through disposing of his fourth bottle when Steve runs out. The fire has long since dwindled to coals that only gleam with a dull red anger in the cracks that criss-cross their surfaces. He gets up and grabs the bucket to properly douse the last of the burning embers just in case. Steve waits patiently through all of this before standing and walking with heavy steps toward the cabin. They don’t bother turning any lights on since the moon is pouring in through a set of slanted windows that hang above the living area. The whole main floor is drenched in silver. He thinks about what they said earlier, how it was beautiful at night, but he isn’t able to reach the feeling. It looks cold and depressed, like winter has covered them and isn’t leaving any time soon. Steve shuffles towards the bathroom and Jonathan makes haste for the room he’d claimed earlier.

He changes quickly, glad to be out of his clothes after an entire day spent baking in them. He’s not as confident as Steve, he can’t walk around with his shirt off and not feel like the universe is staring at him. Maybe Steve feels a similar way, or maybe he likes the feeling of being noticed, even if it’s just in his head. It would be in character for him, though for different reasons than Jonathan used to believe. Steve isn’t as vain as he lets people think. 

He’s only just laid back against the bank of pillows lined up neatly at the head of the bed when his door creaks open. It creaks closed again soon after and Jonathan thinks that Steve accidentally went to the wrong door before realizing his mistake. When Steve drops down on the mattress beside him he begins to think it wasn’t so much a mistake and more a purposeful decision. His breath has a minty tinge to it now, barely masking the thick yeasty scent of all the beers he drank earlier. It’s the smell that makes Jonathan notice just how close they’re laying now, and his body tenses up like he’s expecting Steve to try and punch him when the other boy also takes in their close proximity. Nothing happens though. Steve simply lays on his side, his gaze somber as he stares holes in the side of Jonathan’s face.

“I never told you,” he whispers eventually, causing Jonathan to spasm violently against the mattress at the unexpected noise. Steve continues without noticing. “That day, I never told you. I stopped.”

Jonathan turns his head slightly and casts the other teen a puzzled look. It’s obvious in Steve’s addled brain what he’s talking about, but from Jonathan’s perspective it’s a little vague. “What?” Is all he can croak, shoulders lifting to his ears as he hunches down atop the blankets, feeling incredibly aware of his own body given just how close he is to Steve’s, given the way he can feel the warmth of his skin as surely as the fire they doused.

One leg stretches over him and next he knows Steve is sitting straddled across his abdomen, eyes hooded and secretive as he leans down to peer into Jonathan’s face. Steve’s breath is hot against his skin and it’s all he can do not to squirm helplessly beneath the older boy. “I stopped because I didn’t want to admit it. I was afraid.”

“A-Admit what?”

“My mom didn’t want kids, yeah? I told you that, that night…at the quarry,” his adam’s apple bobs anxiously beneath the shadow of his jaw. “I was afraid I’d said too much.”

“Oh, right,” is all Jonathan can think to answer, his mind occupied by frantically bringing back memories of that evening to distract from the rather difficult present. It turns out to be the opposite of helpful, given how things had ended. 

“I’m afraid of a lot of things, really.”

“Oh.”

“I’m afraid of you.”

Jonathan feels as though his heart has been ripped from his chest at those words, his body caving into the vacuum it’s left behind. “Scared...of me?”

“Sometimes I feel like I could tell you anything, and you would understand. That makes me hate you a little,” Steve confesses in a voice that is oddly free of inflection, like a toy doll endlessly repeating a set of programmed phrases it can never break free from. “I’m sorry about that.”

Steve’s words aren’t anything Jonathan is prepared to deal with, so he continues to stare up into the other’s face without speaking, expression fixed in a look of disbelief. Part of him is horrified, feeling like he’s somehow trespassing as this emotionless Steve bares himself for Jonathan’s perusal. The other half of him is wishing Steve would lean down further and seal the distance between them once and for all. There’s only one thing keeping him from begging the other boy for just that.

“Nancy,” he whispers hoarsely into the vacuum between them and whatever spell was holding them in place is broken. Steve’s expression comes undone and collapses under the weight of his exhaustion. He rolls gracelessly off Jonathan and curls up into a tight ball, the sharp angles of his shoulder blades lined by the faint light pooling in through the curtains, the hollow between drenched in darkness. Jonathan wants to run his fingers over the notches of Steve’s spine, wants to know what his skin feels like in the cool shadows. 

“Nancy,” he hears the boy sigh softly, muffled slightly by the pillow he’s buried his face in.

The house is cold but Jonathan’s skin feels like it’s licked by flames as he tries to lay quiet and still beside his friend. He listens for an immeasurable amount of time as Steve sniffles and murmurs to himself until the sounds fade out and the taut lines of his muscles relax into a deep slumber. It’s not for a long time that sleep finally visits Jonathan, granting him a few hours of fitful rest before he has to face Steve again. 

In the morning the other side of his bed is long grown cold and his one-time bedmate is in the kitchen making bacon and eggs for breakfast. His expression is slightly squinty, but aside from that he doesn’t seem bothered much by any telltale signs of a hangover. When Jonathan asks him if they need to talk about last night Steve looks over with genuine puzzlement on his boyish face and asks “About what?”

Jonathan sighs and lets it go, burying his face in his arms as he waits for the coffee maker to finish brewing. Whatever Steve was on about last night he’s forgotten now that the sun has risen. For Nancy’s sake, as well as his own, Jonathan decides it's better to leave it at that. There’s no use stirring up trouble when things are going so well. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


When Jonathan finds Nancy upstairs in Tina’s main bathroom she’s suspended inside of a soap bubble. 

Colours run and blur around her, washed out and seeming somehow less than she is. What’s more telling is that he can’t even understand what her aura is supposed to mean. Everything is too diluted to make sense of, feelings running together in a watery mess. 

She slowly turns her eyes toward him and they’re large and glassy, as confused as the emotions she’s trapped inside. Whatever happened up here, it had to have been bad. For both Steve and Nancy to wind up so robbed of their usual vibrancy, well, Jonathan can only imagine one type of scenario that would account for this. 

“Hey, Nancy?” he asks gently, reaching through the thin barrier between them to touch her shoulder. She startles and pushes back from the sink, like it took her this long to register Jonathan standing there, even though her eyes had been trained on him since he entered the room. “Sorry,” Jonathan apologizes with a small grimace, hand pulled back to his chest in a split second.

“Sorry. _So_ sorry. We’re always sorry, aren’t we, Jonathan? Why are we always sorry?” Nancy’s voice is childish, words slurring and sloshing around as she makes exaggerated gestures, pointing at each of them in turn.

“Steve left,” Jonathan mentions nervously, not sure how Nancy’s going to react to that information in her current state. “Maybe we should get you home too?”

“Pfft,” she waves one hand directly in his face, fluttering his bangs slightly. “What’s _Steve_ know? He’s always sorry and never sorry enough. He doesn’t _care_.”

Before he can think better of it, Jonathan’s mouth slips open. “You’re wrong. Steve does care. He’s just afraid of showing how much.”

Her forehead furrows and her eyes narrow as Nancy stares at him. She’s leaning forward so that her face is almost directly beneath his, like somehow this proximity will make whatever she’s searching for in his expression become clear. His chest has suddenly become tight, like his muscles are straining against his need to breathe, resisting the pull of air into his lungs. She’s staring _into_ him, peering deeper than anyone should be able to, like she _knows_ the awful truth he’s still miserably trying to deny. 

“Can you...?” She starts to ask the question he never wants to hear, the one that keeps him up at night, worried that others might figure him out. Then her eyes go wide, clarity fading once more as she abruptly turns and vomits into the sink. She slumps slightly against the edge of the countertop, her legs wobbling beneath the flare of her skirt unsteadily. Not thinking, Jonathan reaches for her instantly, doing his best to support her. For a quick second a warm flush of pink spreads in a splotch across the surface of her soap bubble before it’s muted again, seeping back into the swirling mass of emotions. Jonathan swallows his surprise, unable to help the way he can feel his own cheeks heating up to match. 

For a moment Nancy stares up into his face and Jonathan thinks she’s going to pursue their last line of dialogue. 

“Did I puke in my hair?” is what she says instead, eyes misty and filled with the sad patheticism Jonathan has associated with drunkenness since he was a child. He saw Lonnie in a similar state far too many times, though anger had been his more typical response to knocking back a couple of drinks. It seems like Steve was the one who had borne the brunt of Nancy’s frustration, leaving Jonathan with just a fragile teenage girl doing her best to cope with a reality that she never could have predicted. They’re all trying to reconcile the world they live in now with the one they’d grown up believing in. Nancy is the only one carrying the guilt of someone’s needless death on their shoulders, though. Or maybe not. Maybe Steve feels the same. Sometimes it’s so hard to understand the other boy, what he’s feeling, when his aura isn't actively trying to shout it for everyone in the world to see, if only they could. 

Jonathan bites his lip nervously as he wraps an arm gently under Nancy’s shoulders, hobbling along at her side as she struggles to walk straight after they leave the bathroom. The party downstairs is still hectic, people and noise and the reek of marijuana filling up every square inch of space. It isn’t a great atmosphere for making split second observations. Is that why Jonathan hadn’t noticed any colours staining the air around Steve as he’d stormed out? He can’t recall. He doesn’t always see Steve’s aura, but when the other young man is as upset as he had seemed earlier it’s usually a guarantee that Jonathan will catch a flash of _something_. He probably just couldn’t make it out amongst all the visual noise, the colours too easily melting into the swirling dancers and their vibrant costumes. God, this only serves to remind Jonathan of why he hates parties so much. It’s so over stimulating. He can’t think straight with all the music and people constantly barging into his awareness. He can barely focus on Nancy, and she’s tucked up right against him, practically hanging on to him for dear life. On any other night it might feel like he’d won the lottery, but for some reason he can’t banish the devastated look on Steve’s face from his mind. 

Nancy’s fingers curl tighter into his sweater and Jonathan hazards a glance down at her. Her colours have grown more muted, blurred and faded down to barely an inch from her skin. It makes her look ethereal, but sad. An angel sent to Earth and forgotten here. He can’t help the way his arms scoop her tighter to his chest, a warm protective feeling surging through his veins. He doesn’t let go until he has her safely at his car, awkwardly propping the door open and gently guiding her in. 

The entire drive is spent with her steadily tipping over in her seat, alternating between her face being smashed against the passenger window and her temple slumping into his arm. It’s half sad, half adorable, but unfortunately all distracting. He has to continually nudge her upright while trying to keep his eyes on the road. It only serves to start the whole cycle over again. 

When he pulls up to her house she’s only vaguely conscious, which is maybe for the best. He feels very awkward about this and he’d rather not have to recount any of the night’s events to her tomorrow. At least Nancy isn’t making this any more difficult than it has to be, easily sliding out of her seat when he reaches in to help her stand. There are still lights on inside the Wheeler’s house, much to Jonathan’s chagrin. Then again, trying to get Nancy inside in the complete dark wouldn’t be a picnic either. If either of her parents are awake Jonathan has no idea how in the hell he’s going to explain this. 

Hoping that for once his life can hand him just a drop of the luck it so often withholds, Jonathan readjusts his grip around Nancy’s waist and escorts the unsteady girl up to the threshold. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

Jonathan can’t help the way his mind keeps turning the matter over and over, the answer no closer to presenting itself. Just what colour is guilt, he finds himself wondering, unable to let the matter drop.

He’s never seen Nancy or Steve wearing that particular emotion. If he saw it when he was very young on any of the other kids he’d seen flashes of aura from he can’t remember now. 

He can’t get the thought to leave him alone however because he’s here staring at Steve’s broken and bruised face, and Jonathan feels absolutely awash in it. 

None of this is even his fault, not really.

Well. 

None of Steve’s injuries are. Also, Steve’s reasons for even being here tonight aren’t known to Jonathan. The older teen is like a puzzle piece dropped from a different box that winds up mixed in where it doesn’t belong. That doesn’t feel genuine though, because the looks on the faces of Will’s friends seem to be in agreement that Steve is exactly where he’s meant to be, and isn’t that a puzzle in and of itself?

As for the state of his face, Steve explained that Billy Hargrove had made a visit, which was backed up by the boy’s body lying unconscious on their living room floor. He was currently sleeping off the drugs they’d injected him with in the front seat of his car. No one felt particularly safe with a guy who could do that much damage to someone’s face just dozing peacefully next to them. Jonathan had helped Hopper get the teen situated into his sleek Camaro, and if he hadn’t been too gentle about it, well, the prickly cop said nothing either, so Jonathan doesn’t waste his time feeling contrite toward a total asshole.

No, what’s weighing so heavily on him is the sad and restrained smile Steve had cast in their direction as they’d escorted Will back up the front steps. They’d all been tired and sweaty and worse for wear, but filled with a palpable relief. Or so they had been until Nancy saw Steve and dashed over to take the teen’s chin in her hands, tilting his face towards the light as he protested weakly. Steve had waved her off, claiming he looked worse than he felt, which didn’t say much since his face somewhat resembled the cafeteria’s sloppy joes. It had surprisingly been Dustin that succeeded in shooing Nancy away, practically taking up a position guarding Steve to keep anyone from bothering him further. The only person the curly haired boy let close enough to examine his friend was Hopper after he’d returned carrying a drained but triumphant El in his massive arms. A quick examination resulted in a diagnosis of a concussion and a few likely cracked ribs.

Steve protests against going to the hospital, a filmy shroud of fear wrapping around his shoulders at the suggestion. He’s certain Hopper can’t see the teen’s aura, but something in his tone of voice communicates effectively to the cop that he’s not protesting just to look tough or cool. They agree that as long as he lets Hopper wake him and run through a few quick questions every couple of hours that Steve can stay. Just so long as nothing else goes wrong, Hopper emphasizes to the teen and the group of kids carefully watching over him. It seems like an unfairly tall ask in Hawkins, but whatever.

As thankful as Steve is when Hopper proclaims that, Jonathan isn’t surprised when he wakes up in the morning to find the chair Steve was stretched out on empty and a simple note with a scribbled _thanks_ taped to the front door. 

Guilt, Jonathan thinks, must look like the steely grey of dawn after a storm, when all the consequences of the day before come home to roost. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


How does a whole year pass so quickly? One minute he’s exorcising a smoke monster out of his little brother, the next he’s agonizing over his college entrance essays. Over the course of this year it’s like his life has hit a complete reversal. He doesn’t see Steve Harrington everywhere he goes, he doesn’t catch flashes of the other boy’s aura from the corners of his eyes and he doesn’t have to pretend like there’s nothing there. No, Jonathan’s eyes are filled with the dazzling beauty of Nancy Wheeler, aura and all. 

It’s only once he’s with her on a regular basis that he realizes just how deeply personal auras really are, how it’s about more than just colours and moods.

Nancy’s aura is solid and practical. Her aura rarely wavers, and on the odd occasions where it does, it’s usually just until she mulls her feelings over and comes to a decisive conclusion about whatever is bothering her. The emotions she wears are usually simple and upfront, and when asked directly she’s more than happy to answer and explain what’s on her mind. It’s refreshing to know that Nancy is honest with him, that she trusts him enough to include Jonathan in what she’s feeling. One night while feeling bold Jonathan goes so far as to ask if she and Steve ever talked about their auras so frankly. 

“No,” is her soft answer, eyes tightening almost imperceptibly at the corners. “Steve never said anything about my aura. I...tried to ask about his, about how it—“ she shakes her head firmly. “He changed the subject every time. He didn’t want to talk about them.”

Well. That answers a question Jonathan has wondered about for a long time. Nancy _did_ see Steve’s aura. He idly wonders if he should feel jealous about that, if it’s normal that he’s so unbothered that Nancy could see her last boyfriend’s aura and yet still broke up with him. 

“I wonder why,” Jonathan muses thoughtfully, lips pressed near Nancy’s temple, arms wrapped loosely around her. “Is he embarrassed, maybe?”

“Embarrassed?”

“I mean, y’know” Jonathan fidgets slightly, fingers caught up in the stitching of Nancy’s jacket as he fumbles for the right words to explain. “His aura is always so...chaotic. Big. Even as kids, I never saw anyone with an aura as bright and hectic as Steve’s. Like it was demanding people pay attention to it.”

Silence fills the room for several moments that seem to stretch forever until Nancy pulls herself out of Jonathan’s embrace and turns to face him. Her expression is soft and surprised, blue eyes startlingly bright and curious even in the low light. Pushing aside the bangs from his face, her mouth forms the words he’s been scared of hearing for so long. “Jonathan, can you _see_ Steve’s aura?”

He swallows, the back of his throat suddenly burning with shame. He isn’t sure if he’s holding back tears or bile. “As kids, it’s normal to see-“

“Jonathan.” Her tone is gentle, kind, but it also holds a hint of the steel he knows her demure exterior hides. 

“Yes.” It’s only one small syllable and yet his voice somehow manages to break while uttering it. 

Oh god. He cries. He legitimately cries. He isn’t even sure why. But Nancy leans down and kisses his eyelids and whispers almost too low to be heard that it’s okay, that _he’s_ okay, and that she loves him. He doesn’t know why he’s so upset, but her words make things okay again. Nancy makes things okay again because that is what she has always done for him. When she tells him it’s okay he allows himself to believe it for a minute.

After that confession they undress slowly, languidly, and make love in the peaceful hush that’s fallen over the both of them. Their bodies move together on instinct like it feels they were always meant to, and for just a second Jonathan thinks he can feel the moment their auras slot together, the way the edges blur and mingle as they become one whole. And then it passes and they are still linked together and it’s as perfect as it is every time, even if something is subtly off, some final progression, like a musical chord, cut off early. But she’s riding him and she’s so sweet and lovely, so very much the embodiment of everything he’s dreamed of that he forgets and allows all his walls to crash down in his eagerness to accept her. They lie tangled together like that until the dawn comes and when he faintly hears Nancy whisper “Sometimes I still see his aura too,” Jonathan is too terrified to do anything except pretend to be asleep. 

  
  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Jonathan’s panting as he exits his car, struggling out of his work vest as he hurries towards his front porch. A kid had too much soda and popcorn and upchucked all over the front row seats of the theatre, and of course Jonathan is the one tagged to run the clean-up. Normally he wouldn’t mind the overtime, but tonight he has plans. Nancy is so busy with school and extracurriculars lately that it’s hard to make time to just be together. Add in Jonathan’s work schedule and the time he needs to devote to developing his photos and it puts a strain on their relationship that he can’t help but resent. It isn’t anyone’s fault, but it still lodges in his throat, sticky and bitter.

It takes a moment for him to realize that his front door doesn’t normally protest when he shoves his shoulder against it before he hobbles back a step in confusion. 

Steve Harrington is looking down at him with his lips pressed into a thin white line. Casting a look back over his shoulder, Jonathan is surprised to see the teen’s burgundy car sitting shiny and proud in their driveway. It’s an awfully hard car to miss, which makes Jonathan more than a little worried about what his driving must’ve been like on the short jaunt home. The Ford’s still holding together in one piece, so it couldn’t have been that bad.

Steve has already shuffled around him and has his hand on the BMW’s door. He gives a stilted nod before sliding into the front seat. “Bye, man.” He calls before peeling out of the driveway, an obnoxiously peppy song blaring to life as he turns onto the street. He’s gone in seconds and Jonathan can only stare at the space the other boy occupied moments ago in bafflement.

Shaking off the brief encounter, Jonathan hops back to the door, careful to push it open with his hands this time. Will and Nancy both look up at him as he walks in, their expressions very much in contradiction. Will seems sad, a slight downtilt to his mouth that Jonathan can read with a practiced ease. Nancy is agitated and her aura is a dark forest green, a diamond spinning around her with hesitant twitches as she taps her nails together rhythmically. 

“Uh, Steve…” Jonathan points over his shoulder in question, letting his eyes sweep between the two figures. 

“He was here for some D&D lessons,” Will supplies, and Jonathan would be lying if he said he didn’t catch the sullen tone in the boy’s voice. “Dustin wants him to play with us, but Mike said there was no way because he’d have to stop the game every five seconds to explain things to Steve. He didn’t want to get Dustin’s hopes up, so Steve asked me if I could maybe explain how to play. If he gets it then he can rub it in Mike’s face…” Will glances sideways at Nancy, but she shrugs it off. It’s no secret that Mike has a bit of a problem with the older teen, and Steve responds with an almost gleeful pettiness in return, eager to show up a kid that’s almost five years his junior. Jonathan’s given up trying to figure out the dynamics of Will’s friends and how Steve Harrington managed to find himself initiated amongst their ranks. Will seems to like the older teen and he knows Steve doesn’t talk down to him or handle him with kid gloves. Jonathan and their mom are still plenty guilty of that, though given what their family has been through it’s not hard to understand why. Will shoulders it all with a composure and grace beyond his years. It’s no mystery why he’s Will the Wise, after all.

“Oh, uh, that’s cool. I’m sure you’ll be able to teach him in no time.”

“I was _trying_ to.”

“I’m sorry, Will, okay?” Nancy’s words are genuine but it’s obvious her frustration hasn’t passed as she crosses her arms defensively over her chest. “I just needed to talk to him!”

“Talk to him?”

Nancy’s gaze darts to Jonathan before it dances away again quickly, not seeming to land on anything in particular. “School’s almost over,” she says softly, the line of her shoulders softening until her hands fall helplessly into her lap. She picks idly at her skirt, finding a loose thread that she can’t help but tug and pull at. It’s not in her nature to leave things alone. “I just wanted to talk to him before….before whatever happens next. Clear the air. We never...after you and I…” she trails off into a defeated sigh before turning back to Will. “You were right, and I really am sorry. I should have stopped when he asked me too. I just feel like we’re running out of time.”

Jonathan sits down beside his girlfriend and pulls her into his arms. Her aura breaks apart in gentle pieces and he’s rocking her slowly against his chest. He can sympathize with the way time is weighing on her mind. It’s been on his as well. It feels like somewhere a giant stopwatch is ticking away constantly and every time he blinks he’s losing more and more opportunities that he can never get back. It’s a part of life, rationally he knows this and knows Nancy does as well. It doesn’t make it any easier to accept. 

He hums thoughtfully as he places his lips against her temple in a lazy kiss. “Nancy Wheeler,” he murmurs softly, his voice sounding tired and rusty. “Battling time itself and tilting at windmills.” He can’t hide the overwhelming fondness in his words even if he wants to, he loves this beautiful girl too much. If Nancy thinks she can take on the clock and win then Jonathan will put his faith in her being correct any day. 

She stands from his arms and drifts a few feet away, one arm extended out behind her and her expression filled with tenderness. “Come tilt with me?” She asks, pulling him along in her wake as she floats toward the hallway. 

Jonathan pretends he doesn’t see the finger Will sticks in his mouth, miming a gagging motion. The two brothers share a smile and then it’s just him and Nancy in the dark behind his locked door. For a few hours at least they can practice how to make time stand still. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Jonathan can’t help but feel mildly impressed when Steve finally makes it to the front of the line stretching away from the stage. He’s spent at least the past hour and a half being forced to either sit or stand next to Tommy Hagan and Billy Hargrove thanks to alphabetical order. Hargrove in particular looks like he’s been needling Steve, constantly leaning over to whisper something to the other boy, smile smug and eyes cruel. The fact that Steve’s done nothing but stare forward and ignore the obvious taunts is all but a miracle. Once upon a time it never would have happened, but they’ve all changed over the past two years, for better or worse. Steve is arguably better, but even Jonathan knows the older boy has paid dearly for his self improvement. 

When his name is announced Steve climbs the stairs and marches across the stage with his head down and face blank. His aura is a thick foggy grey, almost obscuring him; _misery_. He doesn’t pause when he takes his diploma, he just moves to continue and disappear off the other end of the podium. Before he can the principal catches him by the arm and forces Steve into a perfunctory handshake. Thunder flashes through the cloudy banks of Steve’s emotions as he grimaces at the man, expression openly displeased. Jonathan feels almost guilty as he snaps a picture, but it’s what he’s here to do.

Steve’s parents should be the ones taking advantage of the moment to take proud photos of their son but both Harringtons are absent. The seats that should belong to his parents are instead filled by Dustin and Claudia Henderson. Both are clapping enthusiastically as Steve manages to wrest his hand free from Principal Worley’s and continue his fast paced march off stage. 

Jonathan can’t help but feel bad for the guy. It’s no secret that the past year has been rough for him. Since November of Eighty-Three pretty much nothing has gone right for Steve Harrington, and Jonathan still feels partly responsible. Maybe it’s a cop-out to blame him and Nancy getting together in Murray’s bunker as a rush of teenage hormones, like they couldn’t help what they were doing, but that’s taking the easy way out. They should be better than that. Nancy and he had done something selfish, and they’d hurt Steve. If they had to do it over maybe they could have waited, but there isn’t any point in living in the past. No matter how it happened, Steve was destined to be heartbroken in the end. Jonathan knows exactly how hard it is to love Nancy Wheeler from afar. Hell, Jonathan had spent almost a full year having to watch up close as Steve had gotten to—

Shit. 

It hits Jonathan like a ton of bricks; the ongoing source of his guilt. Steve had been really trying during that year to befriend Jonathan, to include him in their lives. At first it had seemed like he was doing it just because he thought it was what Nancy wanted, but it hadn’t taken long to prove to be genuine. You don’t take someone you thought your girlfriend cheated with on a camping trip just for the hell of it. You don’t straddle that same guy in the middle of the night, drunk and hovering only inches from his face. Then again, you probably don’t expect that guy to wind up cheating with your girlfriend after all. Fuck, their history is complicated. 

Back when it had still been Steve-and-Nancy, the other boy had just wanted to have a normal relationship. Friendship. How had they wound up like this instead? 

He’s with Nancy, he can see her aura, and she can see his! Jonathan is happy for maybe the first time in his life, so why is Steve still floating on his periphery after all this time?

Then again, he could clearly see Steve and Nancy’s auras when they had been together, and had seen for himself how they had mixed like they were meant to be. Jonathan doesn’t know what to believe anymore. So much of what he’d been taught about soulmates just didn’t make sense from his experiences. He really should talk to Nancy about the problem, maybe it’s something that affects them both? They’d had that one conversation about the subject months ago, but it hasn’t come up since. Jonathan’s partially afraid that Nancy’s opinion could change, that eventually she’ll realize how weird it is for her current boyfriend to still be seeing her ex-boyfriend’s aura. The fact she hasn’t already come to that conclusion is pretty surprising. 

He needs to focus on the matter at hand, now that he’s realized the problem. The thing is, he’s not sure how to fix this. Not on his own, but Nancy isn’t with him right now. She and Mike have left Hawkins to visit their Nana, so it’s just Jonathan here alone to deal with the problem. 

Still, it’s the least he can do. He owes Steve this much for having tried so hard to be his friend, and then ignoring the older boy the moment he all but stole his girlfriend. Not that Steve acted like that’s what happened, but Jonathan isn’t deaf. They’ve both definitely heard the rumours spread around school over the past seven months. Everyone had their own speculations as to why Nancy was suddenly with Jonathan Byers instead of Steve Harrington. So far as he knows, Steve never said anything to satisfy the rumours or put them to rest, even if many of them made him out to be the bad guy. It’s like he’s accepted the blame as penance for being a jerk most of his life. It isn’t fair though. Nothing Steve has done is worth putting himself through so much derision and scorn. 

Jonathan checks back in with the Hendersons after the ceremony finishes, promising Dustin he’ll develop the film as soon as possible and get the copies into the kid’s hands. Mrs. Henderson also thanks him, seeming just as eager to have pictures celebrating this milestone in Steve’s life as her son is. Steve’s lucky that even with everything that’s gone wrong, he’s also somehow fallen in with this particular family. Jonathan gets the clear sense that they truly care about the teen in a way that his own parents never had. With that bitter thought swimming through the back of his mind, Jonathan makes a circuit of the gymnasium, dodging excited former-students left and right as he searches for Steve in the milling crowd. 

“What are you doing here, Byers? Gotta show up at Steve’s graduation just to rub it in some more that he lost his girl to you? Or maybe something else, huh?” Tommy Hagan is grinning mischievously, his girlfriend Carol hanging off his arm and chewing her bubblegum at an annoying volume. “You’ve been nosing around Stevie for years, ain’tcha, Byers?”

Jonathan rolls his eyes and moves to walk past them but Carol is quick to send an all too observant comment at his turned back. 

“You’ve been watching Steve for years,” she smiles knowingly, eyes crinkled with a brand of joy Jonathan doesn't recognize. All he knows is that the expression makes his skin crawl uncomfortably when he looks back over his shoulder at the pair. 

“What’s it matter to you?” He mutters back, giving them a half hearted shrug. “It’s not like you’re his friends anymore.”

Tommy splays a hand over his heart, eyes and mouth gone wide and soulful, mocking Jonathan’s words, playing at being hurt. It’s a laughable reaction, which is exactly what Tommy does five seconds later. 

“You weren’t just watching Steve though,” Carol continues like she has something on her mind, a point to make. “You were watching the air _around_ Steve, almost… almost like you could _see_ something… something in the air around him. Ooh, but what could it be? Tommy, do you have any ideas?”

The expression on the boy’s face is delighted, twisted up into a smile that shows far too many teeth. He looks like a freckled shark. It reminds Jonathan of the look he wore the day he and Carol pushed Jamie Braun down on the playground and kicked him until he was bleeding and crying. The day he first witnessed Nancy’s aura. All these years later he hasn’t forgotten a single detail, even the ones he would like to, like the sound of laughter and sobbing mixing together on the playground. 

He knows what Carol is getting at, knows what new idea is being spelled out clearly enough that even Tommy can grasp it. Jonathan has always felt protected by the fact that no one at school gives a damn about him, that he’s safe because he’s mostly ignored. Apparently that was wrong and at least one person had been paying attention. Of course it was his luck that it had to be the worst person possible. 

“Gee Carol, now that you mention it,” Tommy begins in a singsong voice, practically vibrating in glee. 

This isn’t worth his time. It doesn’t matter what he says or does because this will end the same. Denials are worthless, simply likely to drive any rumours home even more aggressively. If they want to tell the entire graduating class that Jonathan can see Steve’s aura, all he can do is walk away like it doesn’t bother him. 

Because it doesn’t. 

Well, not like they want it to. 

Jonathan’s just used to the fact he can see Steve’s colours at this point. Nancy accepts it, and ultimately she’s the only one who really matters. Well, aside from Steve himself. Even if he hears the rumours Carol’s likely to spread, he won’t believe them. Steve knows better than anyone else the kinds of tricks and tactics his former best friends employ. 

He can hear them both taunting him as he walks away, but thankfully neither make a move to stop him. It’s good, because he doesn’t have time for their brand of childishness. If Steve isn’t here any longer there’s a short list of places he might’ve disappeared to. There’s definitely going to be more than one party tonight, and probably a few impromptu get-togethers will pop up as well. He’s not sure why, but finding Steve has become an urgent need that’s simmering low in his stomach. It’s more than just the realization that he hasn’t been a good friend to the other young man. The image of Steve’s face as he accepted his diploma is captured in his mind as clearly as one of his photographs. Bleak and troubled. Even with the Hendersons cheering loudly for him from the family section of the crowd, Steve still bore the look of someone isolated and deeply disconnected from the scene around him.

It’s been a while since he’s seen a look like that on the graduate’s face. Jonathan isn’t comfortable probing too deeply at what that might mean, but he’s spurred to action by it. 

Moving quickly through the outer edges of the crowd Jonathan begins to put together a list. All the students he knows who are throwing parties, plus those who might wind up with impromptu celebrations on their hands. It’s not a huge list; Hawkins is still a small town despite all the crazy things that have happened here.

Settling in behind the wheel of his beat up Ford, Jonathan prepares himself for an evening spent searching for his friend and having to deal with his drunk and jubilant classmates. 

It’s a testament to the strength of his feelings in and of themselves that Jonathan is willing to put himself through his own personal hell to find and apologize to Steve Harrington. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


It’s been a long and unpleasant evening by the time he pulls up in front of the Harrington residence. He’s not even sure that Steve will be home, but he’s exhausted almost every other plausible idea. The boy who used to be a king would never have skipped out on all of the parties being thrown to celebrate his graduating class, but the new and improved Steve Harrington continues to demonstrate that he’s full of surprises. Again. When does it actually stop being so surprising?

Pushing through the gate and into the Harringtons’ spacious backyard, Jonathan is dumbstruck by the scene before him. 

Steve is wearing nothing but his underwear and a pair of socks, the rest of his attire from earlier in the day thrown carelessly on the lawn. Jonathan can’t help but wince. Steve’s suit probably cost more than Jonathan’s entire wardrobe put together and now it’s just a heap of wrinkled cloth sitting in the dirt. As for the man himself, Steve is reclining in the middle an inflatable ring, bobbing leisurely on the surface of his pool. He’s got a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Several other bottles are laying empty around the circumference of the pool, and it looks like maybe a few have sunk beneath the gurgling heated water. A pair of sunglasses hide his eyes from view, even though it’s long past sunset.

“Hey! Johnny, my man!” Steve calls out in a bawdy facsimile of joy when Jonathan steps into the wavering light shining up from the pool. “Here to toast the end of the world?” He holds up his beer and tilts the neck suggestively towards where a half full case sits beside one of the deck chairs.

Jonathan shakes his head as he approaches the pool, making no move toward the alcohol. “No. I came to congratulate you.”

“For surviving?”

“For _graduating_.”

Steve blows a raspberry before taking a huge swig of his drink. “Same thing,” he demures, switching from beer to cigarette and back again. “You should get in here with me,” Steve goes back to the picture of innocent happiness, but Jonathan can practically feel the wrongness of it, can taste the way it coats every word out of the other boy’s mouth.

“Steve, maybe you should tak—“

In the space of the few seconds it took to speak, Steve managed to paddle himself over to Jonathan’s spot watching from the edge of the pool. He tilts the glasses down so that his eyes are just barely peeking out over the top of the rims. They’re glassy and sad, even as he’s doing his best to pretend otherwise. It’s this fact that Jonathan has to keep firmly in mind as Steve tugs at his pants and all but purrs “C’mon, Johnny. Take your clothes off and join me.”

God. If only Steve knew just what an affect those words were having on Jonathan. He can only hope his aura isn’t visible to the older boy in this moment because it’ll betray him in an instant.

“Steve, you’ve been drinking,” Jonathan tries being reasonable, countering Steve’s childish demands with logic. “You shouldn’t be in the water, and I’m certainly not going to join you. It isn’t safe.”

Steve’s mouth flattens into a serious frown, nodding his head along in agreement with everything Jonathan’s saying. “You’re right, man. This is stupid. I’m being stupid,” Jonathan is about to contradict his friend, worried at how easily he agrees with him, but Steve pushes along at a hurried pace. “I’m a little drunk still, man. Can you help me out?” He holds up his hand and leans forward to try and push out of the pool, but he’s rocking unsteadily on the inner tube. With a sigh, Jonathan grabs Steve’s hand and prepares to help him onto the concrete lip of the pool. He does his best to ignore how perfectly their hands fit together palm to palm, when Steve’s fingers clamp around his like an iron vice and his mouth spreads into a huge grin. With one fluid motion Steve tips backwards off the tube dragging Jonathan into the pool and beneath the water with him. 

Burning fills his chest. The chemical taste of the water is choking him as he flounders, desperate for air. He’s all confused from the fall and from Steve still holding tightly onto him. Time stretches slow like molasses (which is warm and chewy, his mind supplies unhelpfully) as he looks towards the other boy. Steve’s eyes are open and peaceful, melancholy. He isn’t trying to get above the water, he’s just letting himself sink with resignation clouding his expression. Blackish purple colour bleeds from him out into the water and Jonathan feels a wave of absolute despair wash over him as it happens, as Steve’s feelings stain the world with their intensity. There are so many swirling in the inky aura that he can’t even put a name to them all. They just leave a yawning emptiness in Jonathan’s stomach, a gnawing hole straight through the centre of his being. 

Fear spikes into his brain, desperately urgent, and it blurs out Jonathan’s focus to everything except Steve. He isn’t really thinking as he pushes back against his instinctive search for the surface and follows Steve down to the pool floor instead. The other boy is passive as Jonathan reaches him and hooks an arm across his chest before beginning to haul him away. He swims in the opposite direction from Steve’s descent, reasoning that the water’s surface must be in that direction. When he breaks through he can’t help the spasm of coughs that shake his entire body as at least a solid litre of water pours out of him. It tastes like poison. He spits a few times to try and rid his mouth of the dreadful flavour, the pungent reminder that he almost drowned in his friend’s pool because said friend was—

Jonathan blinks and quickly drags Steve to the edge of the pool. He awkwardly clambers his own way out before he grabs Steve beneath his arms and hauls him up onto the mostly dry concrete. Jonathan bends him forward, arms still carefully holding Steve as he encourages the other boy to cough and expel the water filling his lungs. When it finally seems like there’s no more left and his shaking has subsided, he turns Steve over carefully to lay against him, head propped in his lap. Jonathan’s not sure what he expects when he looks down at the other boy, not sure what emotion he thinks he’ll see painted on his normally expressive face. When he musters up the courage to look, Steve isn’t showing any emotion at all. Even his aura has gone back into hiding. He’s staring blankly back towards the water, completely unbothered. It’s exactly like that first night at the cabin, the last time he’d witnessed the other boy drinking. If anyone were to see him in that moment they would have no clue that only a minute earlier he’d been contentedly drowning and all too happy to pull Jonathan along with him. 

Was… was that what Steve had really been trying to do?

It’s hard to be sure. Too many times…. too many times Jonathan’s been caught in moments like this with Steve. He never felt that Steve meant him any harm though. Even now. Steve could have hurt him long ago, if he’d wanted. He could’ve pushed Jonathan over the quarry’s edge, or left him and Nancy for dead at the claws of the demogorgon. It was more like… he just couldn’t bear to be alone, even if he was meaning to end things, he needed someone with him. 

Jonathan can’t bring himself to believe that this is what Steve really wants. It’s hard to reconcile this version of his friend with the one who chased down nightmares with a spiked bat, who dotes on a troop of middle schoolers like a big brother might. But then, there have always been glimpses of this boy, sad and tired and left behind. Jonathan has seen flashes of him plenty over the years. Has recognized his loneliness and alienation as being so similar to his own.

“I’ve seen it, Steve. Your aura. When you get like this,” Jonathan whispers in a trembling voice, words suddenly spilling over his lips like a dam being breached. “I understand. How it feels. I know, Steve. I know _you_ , Steve,” Jonathan looks down at the boy in his lap, afraid of the rejection he’s sure he’ll see in his soulful brown eyes. 

Steve’s chin has tilted slightly to the side and his eyes are closed, long lashes fanning out softly against the rise of his cheek. His hair is wet and pushed away from his face, leaving him looking far younger than almost nineteen years. He’s peacefully asleep, chest rising and falling in a slow deep rhythm. Jonathan sighs, not sure if he’s relieved to know that Steve hadn’t heard his confession. Perhaps it’s for the best. It might not be a good idea to throw Jonathan’s ability to see the older boy’s aura on top of his already troubled mind. The last thing Steve needs is to know that one of his only friends can’t help the fact that his soul thinks they might be a good match for each other. _Romantically_. Nope. That is definitely the last thing Steve would want to deal with, especially coming from Jonathan of all people. 

Hoisting his friend into his arms, Jonathan continues to tell himself that this is all for the best. As carefully as he can, he carries Steve up to his bedroom and pulls the covers up over his shivering body. The room is surprisingly neat and tidy, barely looking lived in. It matches the rest of the house. It appears more like a catalogue than a real home, and it confirms a lot that Jonathan has speculated about the Harringtons that he’s never had the courage to ask about directly. It makes his heart hurt on Steve’s behalf. 

If he maybe stopped for a second to kiss the other boy on the forehead and wish him sweet dreams before seeing himself out, only Jonathan himself would ever know. 

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Jonathan isn’t sure what exactly he’s looking at as he stares into the dim interior of Steve’s beemer. It’s parked at an awkward angle along the sidewalk across from the Hawk, unmistakable as Harrington’s ride. No one else in town would flaunt their wealth by driving such an expensive car, only Steve’s family. Honestly, Jonathan isn’t even sure Steve realizes that his car could pay for the Byers’ family’s rent and probably most of their living expenses for an entire year. It’s almost certainly for the best that he doesn’t. Steve is weirdly prickly about some things. Then again, so is Jonathan. 

It looks like a paper factory has exploded over the backseat, a sheaf of letters strewn across the leather seats without an ounce of care. The foot wells are filled with crumpled envelopes and notes filled with Steve’s own blocky handwriting. He tries to make out some of the words but there’s too little light to even catch the barest of drifts. He’d say it couldn’t be that important except that he can also see the state of the car’s owner. 

Steve is draped over the wheel, hands loose fists on the upper curve as his face is pressed into the centre. If the car weren’t in it’s usual immaculate state Jonathan would guess that Steve had been in some sort of accident. There are always accidents of a different sort though he supposes. 

Anxiety wins out against his desire to get home and hop in the shower, so he raps a knuckle gently against the window. Steve jerks up in his seat like he’s been electrocuted, eyes stretched wide as he shakes uncontrollably. Finally realizing that Jonathan is staring in at him, he rolls the pane of glass down a fraction of an inch, dark eyes casting back an angry glare.

“What the actual shit, Byers?” He demands and his voice sounds scratchy and weak. The faded marks of tear tracks highlight his cheeks and Jonathan is left with even more of a puzzle than he first imagined. Steve was out here in his car crying by himself long enough that he fell asleep against the wheel. At least he’d had the presence of mind to pull over and park. 

“I thought maybe you could give me a ride home?” Jonathan shrugs, trying to appear as casual as his words. Steve bobs his head around awkwardly, looking for Jonathan’s car but not finding it. In all fairness he doesn’t blame the guy. It sounds suspicious even to him. Also, Jonathan’s car is parked around the corner, but he doesn’t feel the need to disclose that. “Car problems.” He grunts and Steve nods once.

“Oh. Well. Yeah, sure. Hop in, Byers.”

He takes his time rounding the car, watching from the side of his eye as Steve frantically runs his hands through his hair and scrubs his palms across his cheeks. The older teen is just finishing as Jonathan slides into the passenger seat, leather plush and warm. Sure, it’s a nicer ride than his junky old Ford, but it won’t feel so great when Jonathan has to walk back to work tomorrow to retrieve his ride. This feels more important though and Jonathan’s been trying to be a better friend to Steve for little over a week without much success. Maybe tonight he can make some actual headway now that they’re all but trapped in a car together. Then again, he doesn’t put it past Steve to simply slip out of his car going fifty down one of the back roads if the conversation takes a turn he doesn’t like. Steve always has a way out built into his brain, his eyes automatically locating the escape routes the moment he’s stuck inside. It would be almost admirable if it weren’t so frustrating.

“So...”

Jonathan speaks just because he’s not certain the silence is real or all in his head. His voice comes out warbling and unsteady. He hates having to be the one to start a conversation. This is Steve’s area of expertise, he never used to know when to shut up. This eerily quiet Steve has him wound up, his heart hammering in his chest like it plans to pound his bones to dust.

“Trying to start up your own mill?” He asks in an approximation of a normal conversational tone. It falls flat and sits like lead in the car’s darkened compartment. He catches Steve’s eyes flicking over in confusion and jerks his hand over his shoulder. “All… all the paper in the back. Paper. Paper mill. Starting a mill...?” He over-explains, trying to salvage something of the situation.

“More like trying to set my life on fire,” Steve grumbles in return, his head hunching down low between tensed shoulders. His fingers are restless against the wheel, lifting and resettling, twisting to readjust his grip.

“Oh. Uh.”

“Yeah.”

“Um. Wanna...talk about it?”

Steve snorts humorlessly. “You actually wanna hear it?”

“Yeah.”

His hands still suddenly, looking strangely fragile as they rest against the dark leather. Jonathan can hear the other boy swallow with an audible click, can see the bob of his Adam’s apple as he tries to recover. He pulls his eyes from the road and the look he casts Jonathan is naked, confusion warring against an impossible want. 

“Yeah, Steve. I want to hear it.” The reassertion sits between them, filling up the empty space. He leaves it alone for a long moment and then Steve gently turns onto the shoulder of the road and stares down the path lit by his headlights with a lost expression. He refuses to look at Jonathan, like he’s worried that if he does he’ll see that he’s being lied to. It’s okay, though. Jonathan is used to Steve not seeing him, of becoming just a part of the background in the other’s life.

“I didn’t get into any colleges.”

Jonathan frowns. He mostly expected this result. He knew from Nancy that Steve hadn’t put much effort into his essays or even really considered what he wanted from the future. It’s sad to think that this has remained unchanged since he was fourteen. Even as unrealistic as it is, Jonathan has a dream. He might not get the scholarships he needs to make it happen, but he’s always had something to strive for. Steve’s future has no shape, no goal for him to drive towards. He had hoped that the older boy would find something, but unfortunately the only new skill he’s developed is beating back otherworldly monsters with a baseball bat. Not exactly the sort of thing schools are out scouting for.

Steve swallows again. “It’s okay, really. I mean...I never thought I had a chance in hell of getting in anywhere anyway. I’m not like, shocked or anything. I don’t know why my folks were. They’ve been seeing my report cards for over a decade now. Did they really think a miracle was going to happen? I’m not smart enough to get in somewhere academic and not athletic enough to get a spot on any teams. I’m just...average. I’m not sure I’m even that. 

“My whole life they told me that I would work for my Dad’s company, so I never had to think of anything else or worry about it too much. Even if I didn’t like it, I never questioned it. I would hate it and I’d never be any good at it, like I told you, but it was where I was going to end up regardless. Then, the other day, he told me I couldn’t. I’m an embarrassment, he doesn’t want me there. They don’t want me at home, even. They gave me a time limit on when they want me to move out.”

Jonathan’s heart sinks low in his chest, cold and bruised on Steve’s behalf. He may hate his father and in all likelihood the feeling is mutual, but Jonathan has had his mom’s love and support every step of the way. He doesn’t want to consider for even a second what life would have been like otherwise. Almost none of this is new information between the two of them so Jonathan just nods sombrely, what little comfort it has to offer.

“I want to ask why they even had me, but I mean...I know it’s not that. Dad wanted a kid, wanted a son. Just not me. Mom...”

Steve smiles then, soft and to himself. It’s a curious expression to see fall over his features, it transports Jonathan back in time and he remembers the way his fingers ached to reach out and just touch the other boy, convince himself of his reality. He’s about to reach up and finally discover what that strong line of flesh and bone would feel like to hold, to stroke with his callous covered thumb when Steve turns to him.

“She didn’t want kids at all, not really. Not me. Or any boy. Maybe not even a girl. I’m not sure. She - uh, she’s not great at being a mom. She was so sad after having me. It took something out of her, Dad said, left her like a husk. She never really came back all the way. He just said it was that thing where you get sad after having a baby, post-something. He said that. It wasn’t her fault.”

“Post-partum,” Jonathan supplies softly, leaning into the seat as he watches Steve turning over thoughts and words in his mind, his lips quirked as he tries to piece together the concepts as best as he can. Jonathan can read between the lines. The narrative he’s receiving is the one Steve’s built for himself, the one he tells himself when it’s too much and he’s too tired to deal with the truth. That’s why the words have to be so precise, he’s constructing himself a fantasy and if he puts it together _just_ _so_ then maybe others will believe it too.

His face shatters along with all the right words, collapsing in his lap in a broken heap that he doesn’t know how to make sense of. Jonathan wishes he could help but he can’t see how Steve wants the edges of this story to fit together. He’s always preferred the truth himself. 

“She tried to drown me. I was one and she put me in the bathtub and walked away. My dad...he forgot an important file at home. He had to come back.” His eyes are haunted as he stares at Jonathan, as he searches for a reason that no one can provide him. “But that never happens. He _never_ comes home early. But that night...” he shakes his head miserably. “I’m alive because that’s the one night my dad actually came home, and sometimes when he looks at me I think he wishes he hadn’t.

“I kept meaning to tell you. Like, if I could just say it out loud it wouldn’t have a hold on me anymore. But I couldn’t get the words out. I choked on them every time. I-I tried to show you, tried to...” his lips are curled up beneath his front teeth and Jonathan can see a single bead of blood well up. Unthinking, Jonathan lightly swipes his fingers along Steve’s mouth, catching the single fat drop of crimson on the pad of his thumb. Steve is staring into him with eyes gone glassy and dumb. He’s edging backwards, hand reaching behind him until the door opens and the former athlete tumbles clumsily out on the pavement, one long leg still caught inside the car, his shoelace tangled in the belt buckle. He’s up and recovered a measure of his former grace, but the vacant stare hasn’t lifted and the smile he flashes Jonathan is wooden. 

“I, uh...I hafta, um. Go. Y’know. Um. Go. I’ll be right back.” He flicks a salute off his brow and his legs are shaky as he stumbles off into the bushes beside the roadway. 

Jonathan settles in for the long haul, staring down at the red blotch smudged across his hand now and wonders how he can ever possibly fix this. 

Dawn comes back like it always does, but Steve doesn’t.

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


He supposes it always had to come to this. Him and Steve. A serious talk. Not that they haven’t already had plenty. It even sort of makes sense that it would be at the quarry. The first time Jonathan felt he had come to some preliminary understanding of the other boy had also happened here. Is he just projecting his own hopes into the situation if he says it feels somehow fortuitous?

Probably. 

Well, almost definitely. Hell, they haven’t exchanged a single word since the night Steve abandoned both Jonathan and his car on the side of the road. 

Still, it’s the only way to explain why he’s up here at the top of the cliff face by himself as sunset is progressively fading into genuine night. He only wishes he didn’t feel so disappointed that Steve has stood him up. And oh, if that isn’t just the most hilarious, pathetic way to term what’s happened. 

He should leave. There’s no reason to stand around like an idiot. The thing that bothers him the most is how this feels like such a King Steve move. Writing a note and pinning it under his windshield wiper, calling him out to have a talk and then never showing. A short two years ago it would’ve been easy to picture Steve somewhere knocking back a few drinks with his friends. The group of them having a laugh over the idea of Jonathan stupidly waiting for him when he had no intention of ever showing. The other boy has changed though, hasn’t he? Everything in Jonathan’s gut wants to scream that it’s true, that the Steve he has come to know will never go back to being that casually cruel jerk he’d played at being for so long.

The wind’s picking up, the breeze fresh but cold with the promise of the coming fall. Soon everyone will be going back to school, another summer passed into memory. A year from now and he’ll hopefully be leaving all this behind. Leaving Steve behind. He shivers again and it would be a lie to blame it all on the plummeting temperature. Why is the thought of never seeing Steve again acutely painful? It’s a deep ache that fills the centre of his chest. Nearly the same ache he feels right now, stubbornly standing on the cliff like this display of obstinance will force his friend to show.

It’s too cold. The wind is whipping wildly above the quarry and the cliff is high enough that the trees offer little protection. The part of him that still wants to have faith is begging him to stay, but Jonathan’s spent too much of his life having to be the voice of reason to change now. He tugs the collar of his jacket tighter around his neck and prepares for the long walk back to where he’d parked his Ford. 

He’s only a few feet away when his ears pick up the sound of gravel being tread upon right behind him. “Steve?” He asks in a hopeful voice, turning to face the other boy. 

Other _boys_ , and not one of them is Steve. 

His eyes narrow as his gaze flits between the gleefully dark faces of Tommy Hagan, Reed Archer, and last but never least, Billy Hargrove. The first two aren’t hugely bothersome to Jonathan. He’s had problems on and off with Tommy and Reed his whole life and he knows the types of games they like to play. Billy Hargrove almost killed Steve in Jonathan’s living room. He doesn’t mess around.

“Sorry, _muchacho_. Steve couldn’t make it, though he sends his regrets. Thought we’d come out here to keep you company instead.” Billy is grinning, and it’s not a friendly look on his face. His eyes are wild and focused on Jonathan like a cat toying with a mouse. He’s absolutely sure that running isn’t an option. Billy is quite possibly an even better athlete than Steve, and speed isn’t exactly Jonathan’s forte. His fists might not be much help either. Steve always lacked the instinct to go for the throat, to actually use any of his strength against an opponent. It’s obvious that Hargrove doesn’t share the same hesitancy, as Steve’s bruised and battered face clearly proclaimed for almost a month after the two had tangled. Jonathan can fight, even lacks some of the traits that cause Steve to hold back, but at the end of the day he doesn’t think he could kill a man with his bare hands. The look in Billy’s eyes offers no such promise. 

“Not that it seemed like you needed the company,” Tommy interjects with a laugh that earns a sharp cut of Billy’s glare, not pleased at having the attention pulled from himself. “How long were you just going to stand there by yourself, Byers? If it hadn’t gotten so cold, how long would you have waited for Stevie to show?”

What should have been glaringly obvious all along hits Jonathan like a sack of bricks. The entire reason this whole charade felt uncomfortably like the sort of thing that King Steve would get up to. “You put the note on my car,” he seethes, feeling like the ultimate fool. Such indirect methods were hardly Steve’s real style. He’s the kind of man who confronts people directly, even when it’s probably a bad idea. Steve had sought Jonathan out to apologize in person only hours after taking a vicious beating from him. Steve wouldn’t just leave some vague letter and hope that Jonathan would do as it said. He would’ve looked for Jonathan to talk face to face. It’s a part of the reason his derision for the older boy had so easily turned into admiration.

Tommy holds up a pair of finger guns, firing them excitedly at Jonathan “Bingo, Byers! I’ve been thinking about this since graduation. Just took Billy-boy here to really get this party rolling!” Tommy looks so proud of himself, like the cat that got the cream. In his mind he must feel like a big man, but Jonathan knows it’s only Billy’s weird obsession with besting Steve on every level that got this cruel plan of his any momentum. If left to Tommy it would’ve just stayed a petty little revenge fantasy that he could turn over in his mind whenever he was feeling particularly powerless. Something to make himself seem like the winner rather than the boy who had left him behind. Billy was a different animal altogether, though. Smart enough to keep his mouth shut when he needed to, and vicious enough to go for the kill when it counted. If he’s the one in the driver’s seat there isn’t any predicting how this is going to play out. 

Definitely sick of letting Tommy have any portion of the limelight, Billy casually throws an arm over Jonathan’s shoulder and spins him back toward the quarry with surprising grace. He doesn’t even have time to think about it or resist. Between one footfall and the next he’s staring back at the lip that hangs painfully high above the dark water of the quarry.

“None of that matters, Byers. Y’see, Tommy here was telling me something...interesting, about you and his former pal Stevie.”

“Interesting,” Jonathan echoes back dimly, fighting against the strange slow down his senses are experiencing. Everything inside his head is screaming at him to run, not offering anything that might actually be helpful in the situation. “‘Cause you automatically find anything to do with Steve _interesting_ , right?”

Billy’s eyes fly wide for a split second and then the arm around his shoulder becomes a vice around his neck. Instinct flares up and he’s kicking and struggling but Billy is made of iron and doesn't so much as flinch as Jonathan tries to fight him off.

“Sounds like we got ourselves a misunderstanding here, _hombre_.”

_Not really,_ Jonathan manages to think clearly despite the panic racing through every cell in his body. _You want what you can’t have, and you’ll kill anyone who has even a drop more than you._ He’s more than a little glad that Nancy carries a gun with her everywhere she goes. If Billy has decided to turn his sights on Jonathan, then really anyone in their group could easily become a target, even the kids. He hopes Nancy puts two and two together before anything worse can happen than whatever Billy has cooked up for him. He was planning on meeting up with her after talking to Steve. She’ll be waiting for him just like he’d been waiting on the cliff for the other boy. Jonathan can’t help but worry that it’s going to turn out the same way, being let down when the person you hope for never shows. 

Air rushes back into his lungs in a painful gasp, stumbling back as Billy pushes him away. He catches a glimpse of madness swirling in the teen’s bloodshot eyes, but he’s too busy coughing and spluttering to care. Fight or flight is edging back into his brain now that he can breathe again and his body seeks to put further distance between him and the danger he’s facing. Rock breaks away and crunches loudly behind him when the heel of Jonathan’s shoe edges backward over thin air. 

Billy just smiles that blood-in-the-air smile and nods encouragingly. “That’s it, Byers, just a step or two, real easy.”

He can see the way that Tommy and Reed are stealing anxious glances back and forth between each other, their postures having done a complete one-eighty since first arriving. They’re scared. Hell, they’re terrified, but they’re also pieces of shit that aren’t going to do anything about it. Maybe they’ll run, but that’s as far as Jonathan dares to count on them.

Feeling his insides tightening under Billy’s unflinching gaze, he prepares to at least make a decent fight of this, balling his fists in preparation. He’s taking a few final seconds to just breathe when Jonathan realizes he’s hearing the sound of tires crunching over gravel, the sounds of small pebbles shooting off a car’s undercarriage like little missiles. His eyes are struck by a pair of headlights splashing over the scene and he lifts his arm to his brow to try and make out what’s happening. 

Before the car even comes to a complete stop Nancy has jumped out of the passenger side and has her arms held confidently before her, gun gleaming bright and ready in the cradle of her palms. The darkness has been shattered by the flames she stands at the centre of, and he can see every familiar angle of her face in perfect detail, her beauty etched even deeper by the ferocity of her expression.

Steve stands from the driver’s side after he’s thrown his beemer into park, and his face is a mask of tightness. Something in the coldness of his expression encourages Tommy and Reed to break rank and try to make a run for it the moment they realize who it is. 

Her eyes never leave Billy’s back but Nancy thunders over all of them. “ **Don’t** **_FUCKING_** **MOVE**!” Archer falls first and Tommy sails over him, the two winding up in a tangled pile, shivering and looking miserable. They deserve to feel a whole lot worse, but it seems that everyone here is on the same page about where the real danger lies. 

Steve barely gives the pair more than a scathing glance. As he passes he drops a crumpled sheet of paper at their feet, lips curled into a sneer. “You need to think of some new tricks, dumbass,” is all he has to say, and Jonathan thinks for a second that Tommy looks almost remorseful. It’s hard to say. The expression fades too quickly back into the bitterness that usually haunts his features.

“I had a feeling something was off earlier, so I came looking for you, Jonathan,” Nancy is telling him with a tight smile, arms still rock steady in front of her. “I ran into Steve instead, and he remembered seeing you drive out this way. He also saw these three assholes shortly after. When we found your car down by the road…” she trails off with a shake of her head, curls bobbing in the stiff breeze. “I don’t know what the fuck you thought you were doing, Hargrove, but it’s over. Step back.” Her words are sharp and cold, a stark contrast to the aura fanning around her. It’s both a threat and an order. She’s the one in charge now. 

“Bitch,” Billy mutters under his breath, his shoulders and the set of his body showing just how tense the boy has become. He’s cornered, and Jonathan knows this is bad. The look in Billy’s eyes is one of defeat, Nancy clearly has the upper hand, but he isn’t about to turn magnanimous now. 

Billy strikes forward like a snake, twisting his fist in Jonathan’s lapel so tightly the thin material of his jacket shudders in protest. His back is bent and almost none of his weight is centred over his feet, his arms pinwheeling uselessly as he tries to recover. The only thing keeping him tethered to the ground is Billy.

“You want him?” He seethes close to Jonathan’s ear, the muscles of his throat corded and taut as he struggles to hold them both up. It’s obvious who he’s talking about and Jonathan refuses to dignify him with a reply. Billy turns back to the rest of the teens, spread out along the cliff’s ridge. Nancy still has her gun raised and trained on Billy’s centre mass, while Steve, weaponless, has come up to stand between Billy and his former cohorts. If Billy has any desire to attack them, they’re deliberately standing far enough apart that he’d have to choose one or the other. Jonathan dumbly wishes that Steve had his bat in his hands, but he knows the older boy wouldn’t be able to swing it against a human being, not even Hargrove.

“Come and get him,”

The words seem detached. Far away. Far enough that Jonathan isn’t sure who they’re even directed at. Not until he hears his own name being shouted simultaneously by two painfully familiar voices, and then the idea that he’s falling begins to register. It’s sort of odd. He feels almost bemused by the notion, like he’s found the remote control for his life and as long as he doesn’t switch off the slow-mo he’ll be fine. Above him on the cliff he hears the explosive sound of Nancy’s gun firing off two rounds as her colours lick high into the sky. He feels a moment of panic surge up into his throat as those magnificent fires go out, but he realizes it’s just that another shape has overtaken them, a vast negative space that has swallowed all other light and colour, and that it is rushing down the rock face towards him. It moves like water, like a dam giving way and a torrent of the ocean is spilling free. It crests over him and involuntarily Jonathan breathes in deep and holds it, even as it feels like his lungs have become ice and his bones will shatter with the slightest twitch. He’s only dimly aware of the presence at the centre of the tide that’s engulfed him, he can’t bring himself to believe that _he_ would have jumped after him. 

He lets the darkness fill him and weigh him down, floating deeper into the coldness of the abyss below. His blood begins to crystallize and become inert as an unknowable amount of time passes. He’s suspended for centuries until a bloom of warmth is coaxed to life inside his frozen husk. A whisper of spring, of life, slowly working into him, thawing years of frost and ice away as it fills his lungs. 

His...lungs?

Gasping, Jonathan pitches up roughly, body fighting mindlessly against the hands trying to hold onto him, stroking along his body with tenderness and care. He coughs more and what feels like an entire lake spills from his numb lips, back into the quarry. He blinks against the soft light that surrounds him, seeing his skin lit up in swirling tones of blues and violets and colours he doesn’t know the names of. He recognizes this aura though, has known it for almost as many years as he’s been alive. 

It feels like it takes a million years for him to lift his gaze to take in the sight of the person holding him.

It’s more than he ever expected. 

Staring up into Steve’s eyes, Jonathan feels so small. He feels fully encompassed, swallowed up whole by the sensations he’s practically bathing in. It’s overwhelming, but it only takes a moment for him to understand. 

He’s seen Steve’s aura so many times he can’t even hazard a guess, but now he’s _feeling_ it, and it is on a whole different level. It was a rare trait, the ability to project one’s aura outward, to impress your feelings upon your soulmate. Of course someone as rare and contradictory as Steve would turn out to be one of those people. A lot of small realizations suddenly click into place. Jonathan has felt small echoes of this before, stolen handfuls when he’s gotten close to the other boy, almost reaching out for him. Now that he’s here, _connected_ to it - because Jonathan knows with a certainty that rivals everything else he’s ever been sure of before that they _are_ connected right now, their souls merging effortlessly along their edges - It’s amazing. Absently, he thinks how Nancy never mentioned it to him, but he sort of understands why. There’s something incredibly intimate about being surrounded by Steve’s aura, his feelings, as they’re happening. They float through Jonathan’s head, slow and languid now that the emergency is over and the adrenaline is fading. 

Steve is still staring into his eyes, hand splayed protectively over Jonathan’s chest. It’s heavy and warm and _god_ it feels good after so long wondering. He wants nothing more than to have Steve’s arms wrap around him just like his aura has, to banish the chill that’s crept into Jonathan’s skin. He doesn’t know how to ask for that though. Instead Jonathan reaches up with his fingertips and hesitantly explores the line of Steve’s jaw. It’s far wider than what he’s used to, square where Nancy’s is pointed, and short scruffy stubble has begun to fill in along the edges. It’s more wondrous than he ever allowed himself to imagine all those years ago, even now that he’s grown into his adult looks. He brushes his thumb over the rise of his cheek, can feel the skin heat under his touch, and brings his hand to rest cupping the nape of his neck. He can’t tell what Steve is thinking or feeling, too many overlapping emotions turning his aura into a kaleidoscope shifting in dizzying patterns around them.

“You’re so beautiful,” he hears a voice whisper, husky and awed. It’s a surprise to realize it’s his own voice, still rough from the all murky water he swallowed and subsequently coughed up. “Your colours…”

His entire world is shivering, a tremor that starts at the base of his skull before radiating through his whole body. Looking up into Steve’s face he understands, it isn’t the world moving, it’s Steve. The other boy is shaking so hard as he holds Jonathan that the teen feels like he’s laying on one of those cheesy ‘magic-fingers’ vibrating beds. It’s laughable, almost. The fragile look on Steve’s face is the only thing that keeps him from breaking into a fit of chuckling at the mental picture. 

“You...see…?” Steve’s words are hard to understand, it sounds like he’s struggling to pull them up from the bottom of his soul. He sounds like he’s afraid to say them.

Jonathan spares him the pain and nods once, a definite confirmation with no room for a misunderstanding. “For almost as long as I can remember. Since the very first time I saw you.”

For a moment Steve doesn’t seem to remember to breathe, his aura changing by the second, a wild jumble of colour. Hues and shades pass in and out of Jonathan’s vision that he doesn’t have names for, that he can’t associate any emotion with, and yet they all pass through him, using him to express themselves as he feels the terrifying uncertainty that Steve’s in the grips of.

The hand petting softly at the hair tucked behind Steve’s ear turns insistent, pulling him down towards Jonathan. He’s not forcing him, the other boy easily could break free of the gentle hold Jonathan has on him, but he allows himself to go with it. 

When their lips meet the colours of Steve’s aura disappear and it’s all Jonathan can do to hold on as the strength of the emotions flowing between them amps up past eleven, past twelve, hell - past one hundred. The fears and uncertainties fall away and Jonathan is left holding Steve inside a cocoon of warmth, of a pale lavender light that he can’t see, but that he knows is encircling them both together. He smiles against Steve’s lips as he pulls back, the other staring at him wide eyed, his now unoccupied mouth going slack. 

“You’re so beautiful, inside and out.”

“I am?” The older boy’s voice is filled with a tentative wonder, a disbelief that aches to be conquered. 

Now Jonathan can’t help it as he laughs gently, pulling Steve’s forehead in to peck lightly. He presses his lips to his temple next and holds them there, delights in the fact that Steve isn’t pulling away from him. He wants to enjoy every moment of this that he can, just in case it can’t last forever. “You….you’ve never seen mine?” He murmurs into the short soft hair just above his ear, enjoying the way it tickles against his nose. He tries to hide how much the question means to him, how long he’s wondered about the answer.

It physically hurts as Steve pulls away, balls his hands up into fists and tucks them beneath his arms. He’s acting like he’s doing it to stay warm, but Jonathan knows well enough by now that he’s trying not to give away his nervousness by fidgeting. It’s as good as confirmation. His heart sinks, but he’s been prepared for this outcome for years. Maybe it doesn’t have to matter. Not every couple can see each others’ auras. There’s also the whole Nancy part of this equation. He already knows she's on-board for this...well, whatever this thing is that’s been taking shape around them, _through_ them over the past two years. He and Steve both know they’re compatible with her, and Jonathan is sure that they’re compatible with each other, even if the other boy hasn’t—

“I’ve never seen anyone’s aura,” Steve blurts suddenly, face downcast and eyes darting away nervously. “I’m colourblind.”

Jonathan blinks. Steve is...colourblind?? With painful slowness Jonathan feels his brain kick into gear. 

For reasons not entirely understood, people with full colour blindness are also unable to see anyone’s aura. They can’t even see the shade of the air around other people change, not even as shades of grey. The ability is simply absent. 

Steve….Steve who Jonathan has been watching for almost thirteen years, whose aura he’s seen countless times, who always seemed so...so...lonely. Steve has never been able to see _anyone’s_ aura. He’s been left out, feeling alone his entire life, and Jonathan could have spared him that, if only he’d had the courage. 

For all of his inability to see auras, Steve is somehow still remarkably perceptive. He catches Jonathan by the shoulders as he feels like sinking into the ground, wondering sickly what colour guilt is for maybe the millionth time in his life, and vaguely thankful that Steve couldn’t see him wearing such an ugly emotion anyway.  
  


“Hey, hey!” Steve snaps, voice jarring Jonathan into looking up at him. His eyes are still sad, but it’s not as deep and overwhelming as he’s seen in the past. “It’s okay,” he slowly smiles, a shy hesitant thing that looks completely foreign on the face of a former king. Jonathan loves it. “I never told anyone. Mom and Dad didn’t want anyone to know I was… disabled.” He spits the word out with a grimace, with real malice, and Jonathan realizes he’s hearing Steve’s parents speaking through their son. He surges forward and catches the other boy by the lips again, stomach fluttering nervously at the newness of the activity. Sure, he’s kissed Nancy plenty of times, but there’s something distinctively different with Steve. 

_Steve Harrington._ Holy fuck. It really sinks in for Jonathan that he’s kissing Steve Harrington, a boy who is practically a local legend, and who he’s been watching for years from the side of his eyes. 

Steve relaxes into the kiss, adjusting far more easily to the give and take of their interaction than Jonathan. He doesn’t mind, has always known Steve has a lot of experience over him. He never thought he’d actually get to learn that for himself though. When he stutters and fumbles as he grapples with the dawning reality that he’s kissing the boy of his dreams, Steve compensates, patiently guiding Jonathan through the chaotic welter of emotions. It’s even better than the first kiss, which is a high bar to clear. 

Nancy has managed to make it down the path running along the slope and is hopping carefully through the shallow water towards them, kicking up a fine mist behind her. Her face is a picture of worry, tight lips and wide eyes, but her aura tells a different story. It’s impossible to miss how Steve freezes beside him, hands jerking away from his shoulders with a palpable guilt. 

“It’s okay,” Jonathan soothes, grabbing Steve by the wrists and pulling him back close. He wraps him in a loose hug, chin hooked over his broad shoulder. He could get used to this. Nancy’s constantly using his shoulders like head rests, and now Jonathan understands why. It’s so comfortable and warm and Steve absolutely fills his senses. “Her aura is kind of a peachy colour. It’s almost a perfect circle around her. Nancy’s aura usually takes on geometric shapes. Very precise. Very _Nancy_.” He shares, doing his best to explain something to Steve that the older boy will never fully understand. How do you describe ‘peach’ to someone who can’t distinguish colour? “Um, it’s a warm colour, happy. She’s happy for us. Peach is kinda like...the sunrise. Fills you with that sort of calm glow. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

Steve chuckles. Jonathan can feel him nod once, just barely. “I think I get it,” he says softly by way of thanks.

Pulling up short beside them, Nancy looks down at each boy in turn. After a moment her pensive look breaks away into a genuine smile, the fondness warming her entire face. She shakes her head, curls bobbing in time. “You’re going to catch a cold if you just sit here in the water making out all night.”

A sly grin slides across Steve’s face at Nancy’s teasing words. He turns back to Jonathan, nosing up into his space. “I bet I can keep Johnny warm,” he boasts, words slightly muffled as they press up beneath the hinge of Jonathan’s jaw. If the way his face heats up is any indication, Steve might just be right. Wet jeans however are uncomfortable in a number of ways, and if Steve insists on keeping up what he’s doing then Jonathan is going to be feeling one of those discomforts pretty soon. He’d rather enjoy the experience. With his own smile he pushes the older boy away gently. “See what you’ve done, Nance?” Steve accuses playfully as he and Jonathan help each other up out of the water.

“Stopped my idiots from getting sick? Yeah, I’m the bad guy here,” she scoffs, batting lightly at Steve’s arm. Jonathan can’t help but notice the way the other’s eyes flick over to Nancy, wide and disbelieving. Neither of them miss the possessiveness of her statement. Jonathan’s certainly used to it, but for Steve it’s been awhile. From the tender look on his face though, he’s eager to hear it again.

It’s too dark now to see the top of the quarry, and even if he could the angles are wrong to really glimpse much. “Speaking of bad guys,” he starts, eyes scanning all along the road and towards the woods surrounding them. He doesn’t hear or see anything, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still out there.

“I chased them off,” Nancy’s eyes are steely, gleaming with cold light caught from the last rays of the sun. Jonathan doesn’t doubt for a minute that anyone stuck on the wrong side of that glare would give up and get as far away from the small young woman as they possibly could.

“Just chased them off? That was assault! They could’ve killed Jonathan!”

“Well, I wasn’t going to shoot them,” Nancy shakes her head at Steve, matching frowns on both their faces. That at least confirms for Jonathan that the shots he heard were more in the nature of a warning rather than anything more dire. One less thing he has to worry about. “The best I could do for tonight is get rid of them.”

“Maybe you should have shot them,” Steve murmurs petulantly, wading out of the water. “I can’t fucking believe Tommy and Reed, and—just, fuck!” His hands are balled up against his forehead and Jonathan realizes he can feel waves of angry frustration rolling off the other boy. It’s overwhelming, dwarfing Jonathan’s own feelings entirely. Steve’s emotions seem so immediate, so urgent, it’s hard to think around them. He’s not exactly sure how to ‘disconnect’ himself from Steve, how to separate their auras now that they’ve touched. He’s going to have to figure this out, the other teen feels things on a level far deeper than Jonathan is used to. He loves it, loves _Steve_ , but it’s so hard to focus when everything the boy feels is buzzing urgently against his consciousness. 

Nancy has more practice, or honestly, just has better control than Jonathan. She walks up carefully behind the taller boy and wraps an arm around his back, tucking herself against his shoulder. “I get it,” she’s whispering softly to him, “I don’t want to just let them get away with this either, but right now I just want to get away from here and make sure both you and Jonathan are okay.”

His arms sink to his side and his shoulders slump forward, but Jonathan can feel Steve giving in to Nancy’s calm reasoning even without the visual cues. He can’t help himself any longer and kicks his way out of the water to stand at Steve’s other side. His hand runs alongside Nancy’s on the boy’s back and he hooks his jaw over his shoulder. “Let’s just get out of here,” he suggests, aware that now that the adrenaline has vanished his body feels incredibly tired. “We can go to my house?” He adds hopefully.

The two embracing him chuckle softly and slowly they pry themselves loose from each other. Steve and Nancy take up positions at either of his shoulders and take Jonathan’s hands in theirs as they walk back up towards the top of the cliff. A wave of nausea hits him as they make it about twenty feet and the two effortlessly steer him away from the lip and crowd in against the trees. It may take a bit of time before he’s comfortable with heights again. 

“I’ll go get the car,” Nancy offers, grabbing the keys with practiced ease from Steve’s pocket. She gives a little wave as she runs off ahead, making the best time since she’s the only one of them not wet from head to toe. She also has the gun in case Hargrove comes back for seconds.

“It’s hard to believe this is real.”

Steve snorts dryly and looks over at Jonathan. “You’re telling me,” he offers with a smile. “You and Nance...I thought you were perfect together. I wouldn’t ever think there was room…”

“There’s always been room for you.” Jonathan corrects him. “We were just too busy being scared to say anything about it. Hell, I used to feel the same way. I remember the first time you and Nancy saw each others’ auras. I felt so…. left out. You didn’t have eyes for me, neither of you.”

Steve’s smile falters and his brows take a sharp angle downwards. “What? When…” he turns to Jonathan, and points towards his own face. “I’ve never seen her aura. Colourblind, remember?”

Oh. Jonathan is taken aback, still able with perfect clarity to call back their expressions on that day, the way their auras had called out to each other. Except now he knew Steve was missing a part of that picture, had never known just how connected he and Nancy had been that day. “You looked at her like she was the sun coming up for the first time ever and I always just thought…”

Steve’s expression melts into something warm and almost innocent. “Well yeah,” he whispers softly like it should already be evident. “She’s _Nancy_ .” And Jonathan supposes that maybe it is just that obvious to someone who can’t help but wear his heart on his sleeve. Or his aura. “C’mon, Johnny, I’m not all _that_ complicated,” he teases, lips ghosting over the pulse in his neck, nosing at Jonathan to make room for him, which the other boy is glad to do. “Just hand me a bat and point me in the right direction. Pretty simple.”

Laughing, he pushes on his chest until he can see the older teen’s eyes, staring into him with an adoration that makes it hard to breathe. “You’re more than just a blunt object, Steve.”

He receives another shy smile and a peck on the lips. “Aw, that might just be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Jonathan wraps his arms around Steve, pressing in as hard as he can until he’s certain not an inch of space exists between them anywhere. “I mean it. You’re more than- than- any of what you think you are. You’re _more_ , Steve.”

The older boy may try to pass it off as shivering due to the cold, but the feeling of thankfulness, of complete gratitude that floods Jonathan is more truthful. Not that he’s in a rush to call Steve on his lies. He’s come to realize that they’re a part of his friend, something he’s needed at times to get through all the unhappiness and uncertainty he’s been doled out since childhood. As long as Jonathan knows how his soulmate really feels, then Steve can lie to the outside world as much as he needs to. Jonathan and Nancy know better. 

~*~*~*~*~

Laying huddled together that night, Jonathan stretched out along Steve’s side, Nancy’s hand resting beneath his on the boy’s chest, Jonathan feels a sense of peace descend over them. He’s not sure if it belongs to Steve, or if it’s his own. Maybe it’s shared by all three of them. He’s not even certain such distinctions mean anything for them anymore, not when they’re together. He can’t see the whole picture, can’t see how his own aura fits alongside Nancy and Steve’s but he can feel the way his spirit diffuses, where the gentle edges of their souls break down into gemstone fragments, a colourful mosaic that binds the three of them together. Even if he never saw their auras again Jonathan would know that this is where he belongs, where his sharp edges and awkward angles are smoothed into perfection by the love of the two people always meant for him, even if it took a decade of him fearing it and fighting it before he could let them polish his heart to glow like theirs. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find Shypt at https://shypt.tumblr.com/
> 
> Find Whookami at https://whookami.tumblr.com/


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